On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the US Treasury announced a new set of sanctions against dozens of entities allegedly aiding the Kremlin, including its cyber operations
The war has never been fought only on the ground, but also in cyberspace, with Russia engaging in fake news campaigns, routine distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and the deployment of disruptive malware against Ukrainian targets, including critical infrastructure.
Over the past year, the U.S. and other countries have announced numerous sanctions against individuals and organizations that have sided with Russia, and on Friday the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on 22 individuals and 83 entities.
The sanctioned entities, the US Treasury says, provided Russia with material or technical support in the war, or helped it evade previously imposed sanctions.
The new sanctions target Russian banks, individuals and entities in the financial sector, arms dealers, organizations that help Russia acquire technology and equipment, organizations in the aerospace sector, and more than 20 individuals and entities operating in Russia’s technology and electronics sectors.
Sanctions were imposed on 0Day Technologies, which the US describes as a cyber security consulting company – for providing personal identifying information of Western citizens to Russian intelligence, and on Novilab Mobile, for working on mobile device monitoring technologies.
Forward Systems R&DC was sanctioned for providing software and algorithms to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) for offensive cyber operations, while ZAO Akuta provided programming services to the GRU.
The announcement comes just weeks after the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on seven Russians accused of running the Trickbot cybercrime operation.