How are Western tech companies helping Ukraine fight Russia's hackers?
As Russia continues to bombard Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, it is also waging a dark and far less obvious war – sowing chaos from cyber space.
Russia's sophisticated cyber war is hitting Ukraine's IT systems, with Western companies helping Kyiv fight off the attacks – also aimed at nations helping to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Clint Watts, a former US Army Officer and general manager of the Microsoft Digital Threat Analysis Center, told Forces News Russia is "going after the supply chain of all those military hardware companies or transportation locations" in Poland.
However, he added that Russia "focuses principally in Ukraine" and it knows "where their targets of opportunity are".
"The big picture of cyber war in Ukraine is that it didn't turn into cyber armageddon, with every country hacking each other," he said.
"The Russians were actually very focused on the Russian military and the Russian government using cyber very much as a complement of their military strategy."
Microsoft has donated $400m of support to Ukraine and, at the start of the war, alongside other tech companies, they helped Kyiv move its digital infrastructure into the cloud and out of reach of Russian hackers.
As well as Ukraine, Russia's expected to try to manipulate public sentiment toward the war.
"The principal way which Russia goes about fighting its European adversaries from their perspective, or the US adversaries, is by political warfare," Mr Watts said. "And they understand that very well.
"The way they do it often has a cyber component, which is hack and leak operations – targeting people inside European governments or the military, dumping their secrets out into the open, [and] try and shape public perceptions around the fight between Russia and Ukraine."
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