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Russian espionage mission to subvert Ukrainian conscription uncovered by Google TAG


(Image credit: Google TAG)

Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), alongside Mandiant, has released findings on what it suspects is a Russian espionage and influence campaign designed to demotivate Ukrainian soldiers and infect devices with malware.

The group has been labeled UNC5812, and established themselves as an anti-conscription group called ‘Civil Defense’ that offered apps and software to allow would-be conscripts to view real-time locations of Ukrainian military recruiters.

However, the applications would instead deliver malware alongside a decoy mapping application tracked by Google TAG and Mandiant as SUNSPINNER.

Civil Defense influence campaign

“The ultimate aim of the campaign is to have victims navigate to the UNC5812-controlled “Civil Defense” website, which advertises several different software programs for different operating systems. When installed, these programs result in the download of various commodity malware families,” the Google Threat Intelligence blog stated.

The Civil Defense website was established as early as April 2024 ...


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