The article discusses the collapse of Russia‘s GRU Unit 29155, a covert cyber warfare unit that was tasked with disrupting Ukraine‘s infrastructure and government networks. The unit’s failure was due to internal corruption, dysfunction, and betrayal.
The article highlights several key failures within the unit:
* **Corruption**: Roman Puntus, a GRU officer, used his position to embezzle funds for personal gain, including setting up a shell company called Aegaeon-Impulse and using it to support his second family.
* **Dysfunction**: The unit’s cyber efforts fizzled when the invasion began in February 2022, with only cosmetic website defacements and false claims of deleting government databases being achieved.
* **Betrayal**: Colonel Yuri Denisov left a massive digital footprint, exposing the entire hacker network by reusing a single phone number across four cover identities.
The article concludes that Russia’s greatest cyber threat wasn’t the West, but rather Russia itself.
