Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has been seeking the help of different companies and organizations worldwide to be their ally against the threats of the attacking country. One of the requests that Ukraine has made is for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN to revoke Russia’s top-level domains and SSL certificates – which the organization has rejected.
Despite ICANN’s rejection of Ukraine’s request, they assure the country that they support them in this crisis and assure their internet’s stability, resiliency, and security.
Ukraine also approached RIPE NCC to revoke Russia’s Local Internet Registries (LIR) rights to utilise IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, along with blocking their DNS root servers, to no avail. RIPE NCC has rejected this request after highlighting that domestic political disputes and international conflicts should not affect the means to communicate of any territory.
Internet Society, a body that promotes internet growth, stated that Ukraine’s request for ICANN to revoke Russia’s online rights could disrupt technological, political, commercial, and geographical internet boundaries worldwide.
The organization also added that despite the need to aid the affected territory amid the crisis, revoking one’s rights to internet access contradicts the purpose and function of the internet in connecting to the world.
Furthermore, they also stressed that they are remaining neutral regardless of the ongoing warfare and stick with their mission to support the global internet, including not implementing sanctions or restricting access to anyone from any internet segment.
On the other hand, staying out of the war is not in the vocabulary of threat groups such as Anonymous after they have recently declared cyberwar against Russia by taking down some of its websites, including a Russian-state network, energy corporation, and government agencies.
Many other notorious threat groups have already picked sides between the two countries to aid the crisis against cyberattack threats coming from both parties, with some supporting Ukraine and some supporting Russia.
