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Writer's pictureMichael Paulyn

Russia's Notorious Hacker Group: 7455 Sandworm

Updated: Oct 21, 2023

Russia's hacker group known as Sandworm, also known as Unit 7455, is allegedly the country's cyber military agency. This is part of the much larger GRU, the Russian military organization tasked with retrieving intelligence.



Some other names given to this cyber military agency include Telebots, Voodoo Bear, and Iron Viking. Some cyberattacks Sandworm has been a part of are the following attacks.

  • December 2015 attack on Ukraine's power grid attack,

  • The 2017 NotPetya malware incident also occurred in Ukraine,

  • Political interference in the 2017 French presidential election

  • The 2018 cyberattack on the Winter Olympics opening ceremony

Within the United States Attorney's office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Scott Brady states that the cyber military group campaign "represents the most destructive and costly cyber-attacks in history."



As of October 19, 2020, the American-based grand jury officially indicted six members of Unit 7455 for some very heinous cybercrimes. The following officer's names are listed below:

  • Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko (Юрий Сергеевич Андриенко),

  • Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov (Сергей Владимирович Детистов),

  • Pavel Valeryevich Frolov (Павел Валерьевич Фролов),

  • Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev (Анатолий Сергеевич Ковалев),

  • Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko (Артем Валерьевич Очиченко),

  • Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin (Петр Николаевич Плискин),

These six individuals face criminal charges ranging from conspiracy to conduct computer fraud and abuse, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, damaging protected computers, and aggravated identity theft.



Five officers are allegedly responsible for overtly developing the hacking tools of the six accused. Officer Ochichenko participated in a spearphishing attack campaign against the 2018 Winter Olympics. After that, Sandworm was accountable for working on a technical survey hoping to hack the official domain of the Parliament of Georgia.


As of April 2022, Sandworm has tried to completely blackout all of Ukraine concerning Russia's hostile invasion and war in Ukraine.


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