This could all change in a moment – but for now the Russia/Ukraine conflict is likely to redefine the relationship between kinetic and cyber warfare. It began as expected: an increase in military power at the border and an increase in cyber operations against Ukraine designed to prepare the battlefield.

Those cyber operations have continued but have not escalated to the extent expected. New destructive malware has been detected on Ukrainian computers, but for the most part they are targeted and not in themselves designed to cause widespread infrastructure damage. They started with WhisperGate detected by Microsoft in January, but have been followed by HermeticWiper, IsaacWiper, and FoxBlade (although there are some suggestions that HermeticWiper and FoxBlade are separate names for the same malware).