![]() ![]() Specialists such as programmers and engineers move from one branch to another secret state actors rely heavily on private sector expertise. This subterranean world encompasses spy agencies, commercial firms and higher education institutions. The company is part of Russia’s military-industrial complex. “They had good contacts in that direction,” one former employee said.Īnton Markov, the Vulkan chief executive. Both are graduates of St Petersburg’s military academy and have served with the army in the past, rising to captain and major respectively. Markov founded Vulkan (meaning volcano in English) in 2010, with Alexander Irzhavsky. ![]() Vulkan’s chief executive, Anton Markov, is a man of middle years, with cropped hair and dark bags around the eyes. John Hultquist, the vice-president of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which reviewed selections of the material at the request of the consortium, said: “These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one and the same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight.” What is Vulkan? One document shows engineers recommending Russia add to its own capabilities by using hacking tools stolen in 2016 from the US National Security Agency and posted online. ![]() Another contains the details of a nuclear power station in Switzerland.Ī map of the US found in the leaked Vulkan files as part of the multi-faceted Amezit system. One contains a map showing dots across the US. Some documents in the leak contain what appear to be illustrative examples of potential targets. Since last year’s invasion, Moscow’s missiles have hit Kyiv and other cities, destroying critical infrastructure and leaving the country in the dark.Īnalysts say Russia is also engaged in a continual conflict with what it perceives as its enemy, the west, including the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which have developed their own classified cyber-offensive capabilities in a digital arms race. It is not known whether the tools built by Vulkan have been used for real-world attacks, in Ukraine or elsewhere.īut Russian hackers are known to have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian computer networks a campaign that continues. They offer insight into the Kremlin’s sweeping efforts in the cyber-realm, at a time when it is pursuing a brutal war against Ukraine. The leak contains emails, internal documents, project plans, budgets and contracts. The company and the Kremlin did not respond to multiple requests for comment. For several months, journalists working for 11 media outlets, including the Guardian, Washington Post and Le Monde, have investigated the files in a consortium led by Paper Trail Media and Der Spiegel.įive western intelligence agencies confirmed the Vulkan files appear to be authentic. The source later shared the data and further information with the Munich-based investigative startup Paper Trail Media. I hope you can use this information to show what is happening behind closed doors.” I am angry about the invasion of Ukraine and the terrible things that are happening there. The company is doing bad things and the Russian government is cowardly and wrong. ![]() “Because of the events in Ukraine, I decided to make this information public. “People should know the dangers of this,” the whistleblower said. Days after the invasion in February last year, the source approached the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and said the GRU and FSB “hide behind” Vulkan. Such leaks from Moscow are extremely rare. The Vulkan files, which date from 2016 to 2021, were leaked by an anonymous whistleblower angered by Russia’s war in Ukraine. A file explaining the software states: “The level of secrecy of processed and stored information in the product is ‘Top Secret’.” A third Vulkan-built system – Crystal-2V – is a training program for cyber-operatives in the methods required to bring down rail, air and sea infrastructure. Codenamed Scan-V, it scours the internet for vulnerabilities, which are then stored for use in future cyber-attacks.Īnother system, known as Amezit, amounts to a blueprint for surveilling and controlling the internet in regions under Russia’s command, and also enables disinformation via fake social media profiles. One document links a Vulkan cyber-attack tool with the notorious hacking group Sandworm, which the US government said twice caused blackouts in Ukraine, disrupted the Olympics in South Korea and launched NotPetya, the most economically destructive malware in history. A diagram showing a Vulkan hacking reconnaissance system codenamed Scan, developed since 2018. ![]()
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