Amitai Ben Shushan

A Retrospective on Operation Scorching Heat

In 2021, the Belarusian Cyber Partisans launched a major campaign against the authoritarian state structures of Belarus. Known as Operation Scorching Heat, it hit police databases, government networks, surveillance systems, and internal records in an ambitious attempt to strike at the regime from within.

Plenty of cyber operations in recent years have been framed as hacktivist efforts, but most of them, upon closer inspection, showed technical signs pointing to nation-state involvement. In contrast, few technical details about Operation Scorching Heat have been widely discussed or analyzed in public, leaving open questions about how the campaign was carried out and what it reveals about the group behind it.

This talk takes a retrospective look at the operation, focusing on technical artifacts linked to the 2021 campaign. By examining the tools, infrastructure, and operational behavior, and comparing them with the Cyber Partisans’ public statements, the goal is to discuss the authenticity of their claims and reflect on what this campaign tells us about modern-day hacktivism.

Amitai is a Threat Research Expert with over a decade of experience in analyzing advanced threat actors and targeted attacks. Currently, he leads the Threat Intelligence Analysis (TIA) at Check Point Research, following diverse roles in the fields of Threat Research, Incident Response and Threat Hunting. His main focus is identifying, analyzing and tracking the activity of state-sponsored actors.