Ukraine digital army brews cyberattacks, intel and infowar

By FRANK BAJAK
AP Technology Writer

BOSTON (AP) — The hundreds-strong Ukrainian volunteer “hacker” corps that formed in a fury to counter Russia’s blitzkrieg attack is much more than a paramilitary cyberattack force. It is critical to information combat and crowdsourcing intelligence in Europe’s first major war of the internet age. One IT executive at the core of this bootstrap digital army calls it a “self-organizing swarm.” Inventions of the volunteer hackers include software tools that let smartphone and computer owners anywhere participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks on official Russian websites. And also bots on the Telegram messaging platform that block disinformation, let people report Russian troop locations and offer instructions on assembling Molotov cocktails and basic first aid.