Russia is conducting cyber espionage against Denmark in preparation for a possible war with NATO countries, the Danish Military Intelligence Service FE warned in the Politiken newspaper on Friday.
The agency said in a statement to a leading Danish daily that “Russian state hacker groups are likely conducting cyber espionage against entities in critical infrastructure in order to prepare to carry out destructive cyberattacks in the event of an escalation of war or crisis.”
According to Jeppe Teglskov Jacobsen, advisor to the Danish National Center for Defense Technology, the problem concerns unauthorized access to IT systems in the banking or energy sectors. As the expert explains, Russia could use this type of access to sabotage Denmark if it invades one of the Baltic countries. This would be aimed at hindering Danish military aid.
As “Politiken” writes, the Danish military intelligence FE's warning was issued as a result of cooperation with intelligence services of other European countries and the USA. The source of the danger is a special cyber cell of the Russian intelligence service GRU.
The newspaper cites a joint report by Western intelligence agencies that revealed the activities of a GRU cyber unit called “26165.” Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this troll army has attempted to infiltrate the IT systems of dozens of Western companies and government institutions, hiding under the hacker nicknames APT28, Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard, and Bluedelta.
The analysis explained that the targets were not by accident companies and offices involved in supporting Ukraine in the field of logistics, transport and technology. Unit “26165” was supposed to gain access to about 10 thousand surveillance cameras near border crossings, military installations and railway stations. In this way, it was possible to track the transport of weapons and goods to Ukraine.
The Danish government's Cybersecurity Center warned the water sector, including waterworks, in January about hacker attacks. The risk of their occurrence was first described as “very high.” According to the statement issued at the time, the assessment was influenced by the hacking of the IT system of a water and sewage company in one of the Danish municipalities in December 2024 by a pro-Russian hacker group. As a result of a software failure, a pipe burst and residents were temporarily cut off from water supplies. (PAP)
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