“Pointing to the equipment being used and the level of organization, US and NATO nation officials said there was no doubt that the Russian government was responsible.”
The organized efforts by Russia to interfere in elections and operations of other countries has reached a new battlefront: NATO soldiers’ smartphones are apparently being hacked and compromised in an ongoing campaign to attain operational information and determine troop numbers while eroding morale. Pointing to the equipment being used and the level of organization, US and NATO nation officials said there was no doubt that the Russian government was responsible.
It was reported that Russia is using advanced surveillance techniques, including drones and covert antennas, to pull data from smartphones being used by soldiers deployed as part of the alliance’s “enhanced Forward Presence” (eFP) in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
NATO troops stationed near the Russian border have reported that Russian hackers are targeting their smartphones to gain operational information, gauge troop strength, and intimidate soldiers.
US and other Western officials said they have no doubt that Russia is behind the campaign, which paints an alarming picture of the current state of information warfare. Long assumed to be an area where the West held a decisive advantage, the sophisticated campaign waged against NATO forces in Poland and the Baltic States suggests state-level coordination, and the equipment used—such as sophisticated drones equipped with surveillance electronics—is beyond the reach of most civilians.
The campaign has targeted the contingent of 4,000 NATO troops deployed this year to Poland and the Baltic States to protect the alliance’s European border with Russia, as tensions with Moscow are on the rise.
US soldiers in Latvia and Poland were approached in public by people believed to be Russian agents who relayed details about the soldiers’ lives gleaned from social media hacking, including information about family members
“We have seen attempts to undermine troops deployed in this part of our alliance, but our personnel are well-prepared to perform the mission at hand, despite these ‘hybrid challenges,’” a NATO military official explained. “The safety and security of our personnel is always a top priority for NATO, as well as for all contributing and host nations.”
One target, a US Army lieutenant colonel who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, says the hacking of his smartphone was a wake-up call. His personal iPhone was hacked in Poland and reported as lost while a hacker was using a Russian IP address to try and further breach another level of password protection: “It had a little Apple map, and in the center of the map was Moscow.” It said, “Somebody is trying to access your iPhone.”
He found he was also being physically tracked through his iPhone. “They were geo-locating me. I was like, what the heck is this? I thought this would be easy being stationed in Poland, nobody’s shooting at me. But this is different.” At least six soldiers directly under his command had also seen their phones and Facebook accounts hacked. Other soldiers reported data being erased from their phones.
It is believed that Russia is trying to determine if the troop levels in the area are larger than what’s been publicized. Further, a compromised device could slow a response or create confusion in the event of an invasion.
In response to an event on a base in Estonia, soldiers were told to remove their SIM cards, only use designated secure hotspots to access the internet, and turn off all geolocation functions.
Information gleaned from personal communication, contact lists, and social networking sites has been used in encounters that indicate a goal of harassment or intimidation, according to Western officials.
US and NATO alliance officials said they are concerned about reports that troops on NATO’s frontlines in Poland and the Baltic States have been personally confronted by strangers who possess personal details about them.
The face-to-face harassment is neither unprecedented nor unforeseen. Many countries contributing forces to the NATO reassurance measure near the Russian border warn their troops about the dangers of oversharing on social media, for example, which makes it all too easy for adversaries to do “research.”
US soldiers in Latvia and Poland were approached in public by people believed to be Russian agents who relayed details about the soldiers’ lives gleaned from social media hacking, including information about family members.
While Russia has a history of targeting NATO soldiers, experts have called the intimidation campaign “unprecedented.” Russia might want to impose a “psychological burden on troops’ morale” by sending the message that “Moscow is watching them.”
“Russia has always sought to target NATO servicemen for intelligence exploitation,” said Keir Giles, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program. “But such a campaign of harassment and intimidation is unprecedented in recent times.”
Despite cyber deterrence being elevated to a high priority, these incidents demonstrate how actively Russia is integrating digital and cyber warfare into its conventional security and defense planning. NATO and the Western alliance need to pick up the pace—cyber is now an official warfighting domain, and for now, we remain on the reactive side.
