Ukraine was hit by a large-scale cyberattack on Friday, but the authorities have assured that they have not found significant damage following this attack of unknown origin which comes in the midst of renewed tensions with Russia.
The European Union promptly condemned this computer sabotage, its head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, affirming that all means were mobilized to help Kiev.
Ukraine and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Russian hacker teams of carrying out coordinated attacks on their strategic sites and infrastructure, which Moscow denies.
At midday on Friday, the sites of several Ukrainian ministries, including those of Foreign Affairs and Emergency Situations, remained inaccessible, AFP noted.
“The sites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government agencies are temporarily down“, the spokesperson for Ukrainian diplomacy said in the morning.
Before the Ukrainian diplomacy website was made inaccessible, a threatening message – in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish – had been posted on its home page by the perpetrators of the attack.
“Ukrainians, be afraid and prepare for the worst. All your personal data has been uploaded to the web“, might we read in this message accompanied by several logos including a crossed out Ukrainian flag.
The authorities, however, denied any data theft.
“No personal data leakage”
The “The content of the sites has not been modified and no personal data has been leaked, according to the information available“, assured the Ukrainian intelligence services (SBU).
“Much of the government resources that have been allocated have already been restored, and the rest will be available once more very soon.“, they continued, indicating that sites had been voluntarily deactivated to prevent”the spread of attacks“.
The harbinger of a classic military offensive?
The origin of this hack was not immediately known and the Ukrainian authorities did not accuse anyone.
But it comes amid growing tensions between Ukraine and neighboring Russia, which Kiev and its Western allies accuse of planning a new invasion of Ukrainian territory.
Large-scale computer sabotage targeting Ukrainian strategic infrastructures in order to disrupt the authorities is one of the scenarios mentioned as being the harbinger of a classic military offensive.
Ukraine has been the target of cyber attacks on Russia several times in recent years, notably in 2017 once morest several critical infrastructures and in 2015 once morest its electricity network.
American justice revealed in October that it had indicted six Russian military intelligence agents for these cyber attacks and others around the world.
These Russian hackers, aged 27 to 35, are accused of operating between 2015 and 2019 from an army building dubbed “Tower“, in Moscow, “for the strategic benefit of Russia“, according to the American indictment.
Military exercises
In 2015 in Ukraine, a cyber attack caused a major power cut for several hours in the west of the country. It had been attributed to Russia, but Russia never recognized its responsibility.
Several DDos (denial of service) attacks from Russia have also already hit Ukraine’s Election Commission, according to Kiev.
Friday’s attack comes following several sessions of talks between Russian and Western officials that have taken place in recent days to defuse the crisis around Ukraine, without producing any progress.
Moscow has indicated that it does not see the point of resuming these discussions in the short term, while ensuring that it has no “intention” to invade its neighbor.
In this tense context, the Russian Defense Ministry published on Friday images of military maneuvers with 2,500 soldiers and a hundred tanks taking place regarding fifty kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Russia invaded and then annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula following a pro-Western revolution in 2014.
Moscow is also widely regarded as the military and financial godfather of pro-Russian separatists at war with Ukrainian authorities in the east of the country since 2014.
The European Union condemns
The European Union condemns the cyberattack carried out on Friday once morest several Ukrainian government sites and mobilizes all its means to help Kiev, announced in Brest the head of European diplomacy.
“We have called an emergency meeting of ambassadors from the EU Political and Security Committee to see how we can act and what technical assistance we can provide to Ukraine“, said Josep Borrell who chairs an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brest (West of France).
“The attack cannot be blamed, because we have no proof, but we can imagine“who is behind,” said Josep Borrell.
“This is exactly the kind of thing we fear, these kind of hybrid cyber attacks“, lamented Swedish Minister Ann Linde.”We need to see who is responsible and be very firm in our response.“, she insisted.
