Russia and Ukraine are fighting a cyber war now too

Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferré discusses the state of cyber combat going on between Russia and Ukraine.

Video Transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: Russia's invasion in Ukraine is being fought on multiple fronts, and cyberspace is one of them. Yahoo Finance's own Ines Ferre is here with the story. And Ines, break down what you found about what the cyber threat and cyber attacks have looked like now amid this invasion.

INES FERRE: Yeah, Emily, it's really fascinating what's going on with this cyber war, as one person described it to me. I spoke to the CEO of Hacken. This is a cybersecurity firm based out of Ukraine. His name is Dyma Budorin. And he told me that he gave allowances to his 70 employees for all of them to go to [? Spain ?] days before Russia invaded Ukraine. And he went along with them.

And he says that they're working on their day-to-day operations for their clients, but in between, they are in cyber combat. He says that this is an official cyber war between Russia and Ukraine that's happening. He told me that they are working on bringing down propaganda sites, that they are working to try and find vulnerabilities with the communication systems, with the transportation systems, with the supply chain systems for the Russian army. He says that they've also received help from the international community from hackers, international hackers, from activists abroad as well, that are helping with these efforts.

Now, it's hard to gauge how much damage is done on either side. And he told me, though, that he has seen counterattacks from Russia. But he says that they're not comparable. And he basically is telling me, look, every Ukrainian is trying to stop this war, to stop Putin any way they can. And in this case, he's using his skills and his team is using their skills to do this via cyberspace.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: --spoke to an expert about the risk of cyber attacks against the US, as President Biden recently warned of potential attacks from Russia. What did you learn?

INES FERRE: Yeah, so I spoke to an IT professor from American University around Carmel, and he basically was telling me this. Look, Gartner Research says that there are 250,000 contract software engineers in Belarus and Russia and Ukraine that were working for companies outside of the region, or for contract agencies.

And he says, with Russia that's been cut off from the West, it's only a matter of time before these software engineers don't have a job anymore. So he said that while some of them may find gainful employment, he fears that others will go into ransomware. And so if you have more ransomware hackers that are now working to do these cyber attacks, then that is a heightened risk for the US.