As Russia wages war on Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is unable to respond militarily. However, Western nations have imposed sanctions and civil society activists have joined in to punish Russia further. Hackers have also decided to wage war on Russia, for example, ensuring that Russians are greeted with photos of the horrific campaign Vladimir Putin is carrying out in Ukraine. This article by Parmy Olson is published by Bloomberg. Here is an excerpt:

Moscow users of Google Maps were greeted earlier this week with something they rarely see: photos of horrific scenes from Ukraine, including bombed out homes and injured civilians, and of captured Russian soldiers. The images showed up in the “latest photos” tab of landmarks on the app until Google blocked new photos from its maps of the region this week.  

While a blockbuster cyberattack from Russia has so far failed to materialize, hacktivists have waged dozens of digital skirmishes. The Ukrainian government has created a volunteer “IT Army,” attracting hundreds of thousands of people who have knocked major Russian websites offline and helped distribute an air raid siren app. Never before has a government crowdsourced hacktivists in this way, and in a country already teeming with expertise; Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest markets for remote software engineers, with an estimated 200,000 tech employees. 

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