Life in the Baltic States currently lives on heels and needles.
Regardless of whether it is agreed – or imposed – peace settlement in Ukraine, in political, military and intelligence communities, the fears are growing that Russia will soon freely focus all attention on the border with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Together with allies from NATO, there are currently over 1,700 Canadian soldiers and the air crew dug out as part of a western commitment to defend Latvia. More are planned, and others are in readiness mode if there is a crisis.
Last week, Canadian, Danish, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Swedish and Latvian soldiers conducted a serious training in the field of Adazi training, on the outskirts of the Latvian capital of Riga. The script for which they tried was Stark.
They practiced the defense of the capital, 30 days before the hypothetical war with a fictitious, warring neighbor in the northeast.
Nobody says it's Russia. This is only implied.
The conflict is much less hypothetical about 23 kilometers away, at Cert.LV Center, in which the team of Latvia and Canada Cybrzeciors conducts a digital cold war.
CBC News has received an exclusive look at the common center, in which Canadians and Latvians conduct operations on online threat hunting and what they describe as “cybercriminity” with Russian hackers and private hackers.
“Latvia is the goal of Russian cybernetic operations from the very beginning,” said Varis Teivans, deputy manager and senior technical expert at CERT.LV, located at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Latvia.
When Teivans speaks at the very beginning, he refers to the 2006-07 time frame, when proxy groups associated with the Russian Security Service-FSB-WP conducted attacks of refusal to public infrastructure in neighboring Estonia.
Canadian armed forces in Latvia cooperate with allies with NATO in order to combat Russian cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, such as energy networks and banking systems. CBC News has received exclusive access to the group's headquarters.
He witnessed the full evolution of the vast Russian Cyberwarfka's ability, which – in accordance with the European Policy Analysis Center – includes not only FSB and Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR), but also Russian military intelligence (GU) and presidential administration.
Over the years, Teivans said that Latvia stood in the face of many attacks, whose scale exploded across the Kremlin's full invasion of Ukraine.
He said that Russian goals have expanded from government institutions, such as border controls, energy networks, defense and foreign relations, deep in the private sector of the country – aimed at companies that are part of the national security supply chain.
“The supply chain attacks are something that is very, very common now, and in some cases these attacks have increased seven times.” Since 2020, Teivans said CBC News in a recent interview.
Software development companies and logistics companies – because they are heavily involved in the movement of military equipment – have become their favorite goals in Latvia. Teivans said that hackers are looking for either disturbing the company's activities or gathering an interview for future military operations.
The scale of attacks prompted Canada last year to arrange a five -person military team in order to increase specialists from CERT.LV.
They work next to the university, which is located in a poorly lit, old building in the Soviet style. Behind the banks of computer screens and gigantic, open source, around the world a monitor with a cyber -like threat in the background, Canadians working with Latvians conduct so -called threat hunting operations.
Through intelligence, they receive a clue that the company or system may be violated – and are looking for hunting.
“Operations for hunting for a threat are something that we do together with the Canadian armed forces and (Canadian Center for Cyber Security), and this turned out to be a great scapering also for an endangered actor. They are no longer so effective, “said Teivans.
He said that sometimes it was an exciting experience of catching hackers in real time.
“We had some experience in engaging in what can be called cyberpat, if you want, where they know that we are looking for them and we know that they are in the system,” said Teivans. “Every equivalent tries to kick cybercriminals from the environment.”
May. Kiernan Broda-Milian, a Canadian officer supporting CERT.LV, divides the admiration of Teivans, especially considering the fact that many Russian cyber warvines and private Hactivists became more insolent and do not care if they are caught.
“We see everything, and the fact that we see these actors of threats in real life-for me-is fascinating,” said Beard-Milian.
Beard-Milian sprinkled with descriptions of what he does with references to a Hollywood movie about casino attacks Ocean's 11, Saying that his task is to stop the bandits before they reach the safe.
“Every operation that you conduct here in Latvia is defensive,” said Beard-Milian. “We secure their networks and provide their systems.”
How good are Russians? Beard-Milian stopped for a moment.
“In some cases they are very good, very sophisticated,” he said, adding that he and his team are working on “making sure it is so difficult to do everything in Latvia.”
Beard-Milian also said that their hosts “are able to do this job. But in Latvia there is not enough cyber security specialists, and then we both learn from each other. “
The Canadian team got involved in digital forensics in cases where interference was detected. They basically examine the techniques of characteristic signs who could conduct an attack.
Teivans said they were looking for small mistakes. For example, one Russian hacker left the characters because it was clear that they used a keyboard with the letters of the Cyrillician.
Both Teivans and Beard-Milian said that an important benefit of Canada is that cyber and criminal operations give insight into Russian tactics that will be transferred to Ottawa in the form of an threat intelligence.
This, in turn, helps protect Canadian critical infrastructure.