Massive cyber attack against Ukraine, authorities talk about 'Russian trace'
Cyber attack against Ukraine
On the night of January 14, a large-scale cyber attack took place in Ukraine, during which about 70 websites of central and regional authorities were affected.
According to the Ukrainian Hromadske TV channel, the web resources of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, the State Emergency Service, the Ministry of Energy, and others were affected. Some of them soon resumed work.
On the main page of the Ministries, messages were posted in three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Polish, announcing that “all personal data was uploaded to the public network”.
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The fact of a massive cyber attack was confirmed at a special briefing by the head of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, Viktor Zhora. He called the night cyber attack one of the most powerful in the last four years. According to Zhora, some websites were disabled by the authorities to prevent the spread of the cyber attack.
Currently, law enforcement officers are collecting evidence and analyzing files in order to understand the entire chain of the attack. No other attacks have been recorded.
“As soon as we make sure that there are no bugs in the system and there is no malicious code, the sites will be restored”, Zhora said.
In addition, he noted that the attack occurred on resources where public information is published, while personal data is stored in state registries. So far, the state service for special communications has no information that the data in the registries has been damaged or leaked. In addition, the sites of judicial registries do not work. Experts are checking to see if illicit activities were conducted there.
‘Russian trace’
Viktor Zhora said that “information resources of another country” were the first to report a cyber attack on Ukrainian sites, but did not say what country it was.
The head of the service also added that hacker attacks on Ukraine began in 2014 and this attack “can be associated with the ongoing aggression”.
At the same time, authorities refuse to state that Russia could be behind the cyber attack, they say, it will be possible to name those responsible for the attack only after the investigation is completed.
However, the Center for Strategic Communications under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine openly declares a Russian trace and, in particular, cites the chronology of the spread of news about the cyberattack: first, the information appeared on social media, and then in “dubious” Russian media.
The center also suggests that the massive cyber attack may be related to recent negotiations between the West and Russia, since they did not bring Russia the desired result.
The cyber police of Ukraine plan to launch an investigation into the cyber attack.
