EU Cyber Sanctions: FSB 16th Centre and Proxies
CybersecuritySource
Exposing Russia's malicious cyber ecosystem: the EU adopts its biggest cyber sanctions packageComments
The claim that this is the largest package yet is a bit optimistic. The 2021 sanctions on the GRU were similarly described as unprecedented, yet the infrastructure barely shifted.
The GRU case Marcus mentions suggests that sanctions usually trigger a pivot to private contractors. We will likely see the 16th Centre offload more operations to freelance groups to maintain plausible deniability.
This isn't a standalone policy move. It's part of the same push we're seeing with the new ballistic missile coalitions. The EU is finally treating the digital front as a physical border.
I'm not sure it's a physical border... cyber threats are so fluid that treating them like a line on a map might be the wrong approach... wouldn't a network-based strategy be more effective?
forces the proxies to use less efficient, more expensive channels.
Mapping the ecosystem is the only way this works. My office has seen too many individual sanctions that just lead to the same botnets being rebranded under a different shell company.
Do you think there is a specific type of registration or financial trail that makes these shell companies easier to spot now than they were in the past?
The OP misses the jurisdictional hurdle regarding third party hosting providers. Sanctioning the FSB is one thing; forcing non-EU data centers to comply is where the actual friction occurs.