Russian military hackers attacked the mobile devices of Ukrainian soldiers in an attempt to steal sensitive information from the battlefield that could help the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine, the United States and its allies warned Thursday, CNN reported.

A new warning from the United States and its “five eyes” allies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Great Britain – confirms a report by the Security Service of Ukraine SBU, which established that Russian hackers tried to penetrate Android tablets used by the Ukrainian military. “planning and execution of combat tasks”.

Malicious code by Russian hackers was designed to steal data sent from soldiers’ mobile devices to the Starlink satellite system of billionaire Elon Musk’s company, the SBU reports. Starlink satellites were crucial for communications on the battlefield in Ukraine.

A CNN article shows how the battle for control of sensitive military data in cyberspace has been a key front in Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine.

It is unclear how successful the hacking attempts were. Ukraine’s security service said it had “blocked” some hacking attempts, but also acknowledged that Russians had “captured” tablets on the battlefield and installed malware on them.

“Malware is particularly insidious because it can give intelligence agencies the physical location of targets,” said John Hultquist, principal analyst at Google-owned security firm Mandiant. That capability, Hultquist told CNN, could be “extremely effective on the battlefield.”

The hacking campaign comes amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has been a slow and tense battle to push back Russian forces. US officials have privately expressed concern that Ukraine has failed to make significant progress in months of fighting. (complete on CNN)

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