Back in 2016, Andy Greenberg's editors at Wired wanted him to write a story about cyber

war.

Their initial pitch was inspired by US politics.

They were thinking about the Russian interference in the 2016 election, which I didn't really

see as cyber war at all.

Andy's definition is more malevolent.

Cyber war to me is a campaign of cyber attacks with disruptive or destructive effects carried

out by one state against an enemy state or its adversary, and often in the midst of

an actual war.

So I went looking for the real cyber war story, and I found it in Ukraine.

For the past six years, Andy has reported on the ongoing cyber campaign against Ukraine.

The hacks that have disabled power plants, frozen government agencies, and paralyzed hospitals,

and the Russian military unit behind it all.

On Thursday morning, as Russia officially invaded Ukraine, we called him up to try to understand

the parallel digital war that's taking place alongside the physical one.

There are cyber attacks that are definitely happening now, and have been happening for weeks

prior to this actual physical reinvasion of Ukraine.

And I think it's really important to preface anything I say about cyber attacks at this

moment, like a kind of caveat that they just don't matter as much as the actual physical

attacks with mortars and bullets and fighter jets and helicopters that are truly killing

people and putting many more people's lives at risk, but it's still matters.

Since January, government networks have been attacked, so have banks in the military.

...