The U.S government issued fresh warnings last week of a potential cyberattack by Russia in response to the harsh economic sanctions imposed on the country due to its invasion of Ukraine.
The warnings were delivered after Russian hackers attempted to disable the power grid that serves over two million people in Ukraine.
“The Biden administration has been releasing sensitive intelligence and dire warnings that the Kremlin is preparing to launch a new generation of cyberattacks on American soil. U.S. cyber defenders tell us they are now watching Russian state actors probe some of our most critical systems, and are bracing themselves — especially at the Department of Homeland Security — with an initiative called 'Shields Up,'" said 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker in an interview with Jen Easterly, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
Shields Up is an initiative between CISA and the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative that responds to ongoing and disruptive activities in connection with Russia’s attack by documenting information on Russian threat actors, ransomware, destructive malware, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and Shields Up protective measures, its website notes.
Several cybersecurity stocks were sensitive to the news:
- Cerberus Cyber Sentinel Corp (NASDAQ:CISO)
- Cyberark Software Ltd (NASDAQ:CYBR)
- Cyren Ltd (NASDAQ:CYRN)
- Data Storage Corp (NASDAQ:DTST)
- Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT)
- Ironnet Inc (NYSE:IRNT)
- Kyndryl Holdings Inc (NYSE:KD)
- Mandiant Inc (NASDAQ:MNDT)
- Palo Alto Networks Inc (NASDAQ:PANW)
- SentinelOne Inc (NYSE:S)
- Crowdstrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CRWD)
