UK intelligence unmasks Russian ‘Infamous Chisel’ operation compromising Ukrainian soldiers' Android devices

4 September 2023, 02:00 PM

The UK's National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), together with international partners, has published a report on a malicious Russian hacker program targeting Android mobile devices used by the Ukrainian military.

This was revealed in the latest intelligence update published by the UK Ministry of Defense on Twitter on Sept. 4.

The malware, called Infamous Chisel, is being used by the Russian hacker group Sandworm, which is associated with the Russian General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU.

"Infamous Chisel enables persistent access to, and the collation and exfiltration of data from, compromised Android devices," the Twitter report reads.“This includes targeting applications used by the Ukrainian military.”

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UK intelligence emphasized that this shows that Russia continues to use cyber capabilities to support the invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes intelligence agencies from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, warned of attacks targeting the Android tablets used by the Ukrainian military to plan and execute combat missions.

The peculiarity of these hacking attempts is the use of malicious code developed by Russian hackers to steal data sent from soldiers' mobile devices to the Starlink satellite system.

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