IN TIMES OF CONFLICT, WOMEN ARE STEPPING UP FOR THE CYBER FIGHT

by David Braue

Women are spearheading Ukraine’s response to Russian cyber aggression – and winning

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags into its second year, its seismic effects are still being felt around the globe – not the least because of the heart-rending vision as families were separated, men under 60 years of age were sent to the front lines, and millions of women and children fled the country for safety.

For Natalia Tkachuk and myriad other women who stayed to fight a very different kind of war, however, the past year has been one of fighting back – and, she argues, “we’re not losing [but] winning in the cyber war.”

“In Ukraine, we have a totally different cyber threat landscape” in which typical concerns about ransomware have been eclipsed by “sophisticated, well-planned… state-sponsored cyber attacks against our critical infrastructure,” Tkachuk told the recent Council of Europe International Conference on Promoting the Role of Women in Preventing, Investigating and Prosecuting Cybercrime.

“Because of our women in this sphere, we are fighting really hard to protect our cyber space,” she continued. “We have an IT army, and there are lots of volunteers. Girls joined this army, and we are hitting the aggressor back. And we are doing good.”

“We are doing good, but of course it’s still not enough for women in this sphere,” said Tkachuk, a 20-year veteran of law enforcement and national security.

“All this time I was talking about equal rights, and opportunities, and obligations for men and women. But when this war came, I understood that still there are differences [due to the conscription of men and the evacuation of so many women].”

Yet the choice is there for women who want to stay and fight – and on the front lines, or on the cyber lines. In Ukraine, she said, “there are thousands and thousands of girls fighting shoulder to shoulder with men – and I think that we need to have the same in cybersecurity.”

“There are many talented, intelligent young girls who want to obtain an IT education, who want to do their career in combatting cybercrime,” she continued, “and we need to share this message that nobody can take this right from them.”

The role of women in Ukraine’s cyber defences is far from the first time women have resolved to fight for their country in times of conflict – even when they were not allowed to fight in combat, during previous wars women played significant roles in support, logistics, code-breaking, manufacturing war materiel, and more – yet amidst the carnage in Ukraine their determination and success on the cyber battlefield has been significant.

Despite Russian government cybersecurity teams and affiliated groups launching volley after volley of cyber attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure –a strategy that spawned disastrous outcomes for the entire world when NotPetya escaped its Ukranian target – it was kinetic attacks with missiles and tanks that left the country cold and without power through the winter.

Fighting Together In New Ways

With national critical infrastructure under more pressure from cyber attackers than ever, the empowerment of the women cybersecurity specialists fighting in Ukraine is a lesson for every country – and a look back at the last year of global cyber conflict highlights just how incessant the attacks have become.

In January alone, for example, Russia-linked hackers targeted Latvia’s Ministry of Defense with a phishing campaign, while Serbian cyber specialists blocked attacks on the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs; Malaysia’s national defence networks were attacked and successfully defended; Albanian government servers were targeted in ongoing campaigns; Nepalese government websites were hit with denial of service (DoS) attacks; and the UK’s Royal Mail was seriously disrupted after a significant attack by Russia-linked hackers.

Unlike Ukraine, most of those countries are not currently fighting a simultaneous kinetic war –but the damage that cyber attacks can cause is no less problematic.

That’s why, even as governments bolster their cyber teams to better defend against cyber attackers – and to directly take them on in recognition of significantly escalated mission statements – there have never been more opportunities for women to rise to the call by supporting national cyber defence efforts.

Women are playing a significant role in the cyber defence organisations in Australia, Minister for Cyber

Security and Home Affairs Clare O’Neil recently told Cybercrime Magazine, with an “unbelievably diverse workforce – more so than any other part of the Australian Government that I can think of.”

Increasing the diversity of cyber incident management teams will be crucial to ensuring that cybersecurity teams not only come together in times of crisis, but that they maintain a baseline defence on an ongoing basis – and this, O’Neil said, requires a mindset shift on the part of government and business leaders alike.

“We cannot reduce cyber risk to zero,” she explained, “[because] the Internet is porous and in everything. Even if we take all the essential precautions, and we do all of the things to fortify our countries, cyber attacks will continue to occur.”

That means building diverse and effective cyber response forces is intimately tied to national defence: “part of our resilience for the future,” O’Neil said, “is how quickly we can get back off the mat and start punching back at these people.”

With a range of women working in cyber investigations and intelligence support – as well as what Australian Federal Police (AFP) Cybercrime Operations leading senior constable Jessica Neilsen called “a huge leadership team of females” – there are signs that the call for diversity is bearing fruit in. many countries.

“One of the things that I’m really proud of being a woman and a police officer is the impact that women are having not only within cyber crime, but across all crime types,” said Neilsen, who was among the AFP cybersecurity specialists called to investigate what she only described as “a significant ransomware incident” late last year.

“Being able to work effectively and harmoniously with our male counterparts is really key to our success,” she added. “We have a lot of support from our male counterparts in the AFP, and I’m really proud of that because we can’t do this all by ourselves. It takes a great team to achieve results.”

Yet in many countries, efforts to engage women in cybercrime operations are still in very early days.

Having begun working in law enforcement at the age of 25, Shqipe Salihu – an IT forensic expert who is just one of two people conducting forensic cyber investigations within the Kosovo Police Unit for Examination of IT Equipment – found that “it was very hard for me to be respected as a professional.”

But with the support of both male and female peers, she said, she was able to engross herself in a field that she came to love.

“The challenge of learning something completely new, that is very complex but also very useful, dragged me into forensics,” she explained.

“It took me a couple of years to settle into everything and to be respected, but I’m very thankful for the people that I had around who helped me and supported me to go through all obstacles.”

All Hands On Deck

As women embrace their potential in the context of national cyber teams, other countries are beginning to see the same call to arms – building new cyber capabilities, empowering women to participate, and passing new laws that give cyber teams more agency – that has helped Ukraine’s cyber defence to be so effective.

Cyber teams are increasingly finding that “being a woman is an advantage,” Ukraine’s Tkachuk said. “Women are smart, intelligent, and empathic – and sometimes that’s very important to solve some very difficult criminal and cyber crime cases.”

Yet as government cyber agencies recruit women and men alike, the realities of limited resources means they are also looking to step up their engagement with private-sector organisations – which are becoming collateral damage in a time of major conflict, online and off.

“We live in a world where the critical infrastructure that Americans rely on every hour of every day to get our water, our communications, our transportation, our healthcare, and our education, is underpinned by a technology base that was created, effectively, in an insecure way,” said Jen Easterley, director of the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), during the recent CES 2023 conference.

That insecurity had become a liability during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with CISA launching its Shields Up! campaign to rally global businesses after it became clear the conflict would have repercussions far outside of Eastern Europe.

In Ukraine and outside of it, Easterley said, stiff resistance to cyber attacks had confounded Russia’s perceived cyber advantage – and helped limit the blast radius to ensure that the war didn’t spawn another NotPetya.

Russia “thought it was going to be a quick and easy drive down to Kyiv,” she explained, “but they found themselves in a gruelling ground war… and are fighting against a force that have shown themselves to be incredibly resilient and courageous.”

In Ukraine and elsewhere, that defence force has staved off cyber disaster for now – but that does not mean, Easterley warned, that the world can be complacent in staffing the cyber teams defending them.

“It’s not the asymmetry of capability” that is the problem, she said. “It’s the asymmetry of ethics.”

“It’s because these countries – and we’re seeing it kinetically with Russia and Ukraine – will do things to critical infrastructure that we won’t do. And so I worry more about these capabilities being used in really bad ways, by people who don’t have the democracy and values that we have.”

Cyber Safety Expert, The Cyber Safety Tech Mum