Page 75 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2023

be filled by the banker Yuri Kovalchuk, who owns most of the privately-operated media in the country and
is a close friend and ally of Vladimir Putin.

Another question being discussed by analysts is the recent hacking activity, targeting Dozor; a Russian
satellite communications company, in which the PMC logo was posted, and hundreds of files were leaked,
(some of which link the FSB to Dozor, as well as the passwords of Dozor employees).

The attackers claim that they have damaged satellite terminals and confidential information stored on
Dozor’s servers, but this has not yet been confirmed. A pro-Ukrainian, ‘false flag’ operation remains very
much a possibility: as Ukrainian cyber auxiliaries and psy-op operators have been using the mutiny to
sow retaliatory chaos, increasingly targeting Russian social media, but also radio broadcasts in cyber-
enabled information operations, inserting messages exploiting uncertainty caused by the Wagner mutiny.

The hackers were also able to exploit the chaos in the informational space, created by the lack of a
coordinated response by the Russian government, inserting messages, stating Russia had declared
martial law in response to a large-scale invasion. The operation gained enough traction to draw an official
denial from a Kremlin spokesman.

Analysts are not yet sure of the perpetrators of the satellite company hack, however if this operation was
conducted by hackers affiliated with Wagner PMC, it is likely that the collective would ignore the offer to
sign contracts with the Russian military, offering its services on the black market instead. According to
the deal between Wagner and the Kremlin, its base should move to Belarus, where the local government
is not likely to put much pressure on the hacking element of the business, opening the possibility for a
new powerful criminal hacking group to enter the market after cessation of its work on the behest of the
Kremlin.

Conclusion

Although the immediate threat to the Russian regime has been averted, damage has nonetheless been
done. The perception of Vladimir Putin’s power and his apparent invulnerability has been eroded by the
mutiny, and the Russian political system has arguably been weakened in a way that will be difficult for
the Kremlin rulers to overcome: For 24 hours the emperor had no clothes, and the Russian people will
now always remember that.

The question now is who will run the Kremlin’s information operations, what will become of Prigozhin‘s
empire. The situation has no easy solution for the Kremlin because the political model from the ‘Thirty
Years War’ will not be easy for the Kremlin to cut off, without losing its laboriously built credibility in
countries, where it operated through Wagner PMC.
It would be safe to assume that Prigozhin is now a Russian persona non grata, but has he become so
powerful that the Kremlin will be obliged to let him keep (at least temporarily) part of his business empire,
and continue to represent the Kremlin on other continents? This question is just one of the many levels
of absurdity of this rebellion, to which only time has the answer for.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2023 Edition 75
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