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There has been substantial commentary on the role of cyberattacks carried out by low-level cybercrime actors in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.We analyse 358k website defacement attacks, 1.7M UDP amplification DDoS attacks, 1 764 posts made by 372 users on Hack Forums mentioning the two countries, and 441 Telegram announcements (with 58k replies) of a volunteer hacking group for two months before and four months after the invasion.We find the conflict briefly but notably caught the attention of low-level cybercrime actors, with significant increases in online discussion and both types of attacks targeting Russia and Ukraine.However, there was little evidence of high-profile actions; the role of these players in the ongoing hybrid warfare is minor, and they should be separated from persistent and motivated 'hacktivists' in state-sponsored operations.Their involvement in the conflict appears to have been short-lived and fleeting, with a clear loss of interest in discussing the situation and carrying out both website defacement and DDoS attacks against either Russia or Ukraine after just a few weeks. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics →
Vu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.