On Tuesday, the army, defense ministries, and major bank websites were all broken down by a succession of cyberattacks in Ukraine. The cyberattacks made at least ten Ukrainian websites inaccessible. This includes the military, foreign, and cultural ministries, as well as Ukraine’s two major state banks. Websites were fed with a cloudburst of garbage data packets in such attacks, rendering them unavailable.
Customers at Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, and Sberbank, Ukraine’s state-owned bank, have complained about crises with online payments and the banks’ applications. Among the attackers’ preys was the hosting provider for Ukraine’s army and Privatbank, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at the network management firm Kentik Inc.
“We don’t have any information of other disruptive actions that (could) be hidden by this DDoS attack,” said Victor Zhora, a top Ukrainian cyber defense official. He said emergency response teams were working to cut off the attackers and recover services. It was too early to say who was behind the attack, he added.
Russian involvement
“There is no threat to depositors’ funds,” says Zhora’s agency. It is the Ukrainian Information Ministry’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Nor did the attack impact the communications of Ukraine’s military forces, said Zhora. “We need to analyze logs from IT providers,” Zhora said.
Ukrainians are constantly anxious that such “noisy” intrusions are camouflaging something extra hazardous. However, fears of a Russian attack on Ukraine lessened significantly on Tuesday. This was after Russia provided indications that it may be backing away from the cliff, but Western nations requested testimony.
“These attacks are ratcheting up attention and pressure,” said Christian Sorensen, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm SightGain. Cyber Command. “The purpose at this stage is to increase leverage in negotiations.”
Since 2014, when Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, it has been subjected to steady Russian cyberattacks. On January 14, a hack used a malware “wiper” camouflaged as ransomware to infect computers. On dozens of vandalized Ukrainian official websites at the same time, a message read: “Be afraid and expect the worst.”
