Illustrative Image
On December 12, Ukrainian came under one of the most massive cyber attacks. After the work of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar was interrupted, the websites of Ukrainian ministries and state departments were hacked.
On the morning, Kyivstar mobile operator, which has 24 million subscribers throughout the country, reported large-scale failure. Kyivstar is largerly used not only by civilians, but also by the Ukrainian military.
The website of the company is still not working. The subscribers were left without mobile connection and Internet. Customers of the country’s largest credit institutions, Privatbank and Oschadbank, also faced problems to connect to their accounts. Subscriber of Kyivstar reportedly received push notifications with the call to “get Zelensky out.”
Illustrative Image
The head of Kyivstar claimed that the reason was a hacker attack:
“”This is a war. It is taking place not only at the front, but also in the virtual space. Unfortunately, we are overwhelmed as a result of this war. This is penetration into the infrastructure and destruction of it. We see that the main purpose of this attack is the maximum destruction of the operator’s virtual IT infrastructure,” Komarov said, claiming that “two important systems” were partially destroyed.
The head of Kyivstar blamed Russia for the attack, adding that this was the first such large hacker attack in the entire history of mobile communications in Ukraine, so the timing of the repair is currently unclear and it “will take a long time.” The leakage of personal data was allegedly avoided, but it was necessary to “physically disconnect the servers.”
The SBU launched a criminal case and stated that it suspects the Russian special services.
Due to the fall of Kyivstar, subscribers of other Ukrainian operators, including Vodafone and lifecell, also experience significant difficulties due to overload of their networks.
During the day, the websites of the main departments and ministries of Ukraine also did not work. They include the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the State Tax Administration. The list of targets is likely to continue to grow.
Today, Ukraine has turned into a real ‘404 Not Found’ country.
