Unearthing APT44: Russia’s Notorious Cyber Sabotage Unit Sandworm
Unearthing APT44: Russia’s Notorious Cyber Sabotage Unit Sandworm
APT44 is a threat actor that is actively engaged in the full spectrum of espionage, attack, and influence operations.
What's worrying about this report is that it's coming from Google itself.
With Russia's full-scale invasion in its third year, Sandworm (aka FROZENBARENTS) remains a formidable threat to Ukraine. The group’s operations in support of Moscow’s war aims have proven tactically and operationally adaptable...
...Mandiant continues to see operations from the group that are global in scope in key political, military, and economic hotspots for Russia. Additionally, with a record number of people participating in national elections in 2024, Sandworm’s history of attempting to interfere in democratic processes further elevates the severity of the threat the group may pose in the near-term.
What’s worrying about this report is that it’s coming from Google itself.
Google just bought Mandiant, one of the leading cybersecurity and threat intelligence firms. Therefore, Google is one of the leading cybersecurity and threat intelligence firms.
It’s now expected that Google would release this kind of report, seeing as they sell this as an enterprise service.
Mandiant has previously released this type of report regularly; for instance, they were the firm that disclosed the SolarWinds hack.
What is worrying about Google being involved with this report? They have an internet security division, this is exactly their job?
My point being that they deem this serious enough to release publicly themselves instead of an internal memory, and that this is about an active threat actor rather than a mere vulnerability.
Google has been trying to get into the security game for a while, especially after Microsoft parachuting to the top with Defender/Sentinel etc.
It’s good business to release threat intelligence that speaks to high-profile topics to garner credibility.
With that said, they revealed nothing new that we, security professionals (inc. gov agencies), didn’t already know for a long while.
Cyber security companies report on APTs all the time, nothing unusual about that.