Moscow Times reports: A recent influx of reports about Russian electronic espionage activity has prompted fresh concerns that the Kremlin may be gunning for a cyberwar with the West.

Not everyone is convinced: Russian IT analysts interviewed by The Moscow Times were more inclined to blame the spike in attack reports on media hype and cybersecurity companies exploiting clients’ fears.

But Russia’s leading expert on domestic security services, Andrei Soldatov, said the pattern of the attacks indicated that the Russian government may be mounting a covert Internet offensive.

Experts could not say, however, whether heavy guns with the FSB electronic espionage agencies have been deployed.

“All government-linked attacks so far have been carried out by people on the market: the cyber-mercenaries,” Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the Agentura.ru website, said Wednesday. [Continue reading…]