Ukraine’s defence ministry and two banks suffer a major cyber-attack

On some of the websites, a text in 3 languages -- Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian -- stated that all data uploaded to the network by Ukrainians had become public

PGurus Newsdesk

February 16, 2022

On some of the websites, a text in 3 languages -- Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian -- stated that all data uploaded to the network by Ukrainians had become public

Experts suspect Russia’s involvement in fresh cyber-attacks

Amid the stand-off with Russia, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has suffered a major cyber-attack that prevented users from accessing its website. Reportedly, two Ukrainian banks also lost access to online banking services, according to the government.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said that its website was hit with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

“The website was probably attacked by DDoS: An excessive number of requests per second was recorded. Technical works on restoration of regular functioning are carried out. Communication through FB and Twitter pages,” the ministry tweeted late on Tuesday.”

❗️Сайт МОУ зазнав, ймовірно, DDoS-атаки: фіксувалася надмірна кількість звернень на секунду.
Проводяться техроботи з відновлення штатного функціонування.
Комунікація через сторінки в FB та Twitter, сайти АрміяInform https://t.co/ukMW41irPW та Армія FM https://t.co/IpDnBXoMXw.

— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 15, 2022

The DDoS attack sends multiple requests to the attacked web resource — with the aim of exceeding the website’s capacity to handle multiple requests, and prevent the website from functioning correctly.

According to the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communications, PrivatBank faced a “massive DDoS attack” that blocked many online banking services, including payments and balance inquiries.

Oschadbank also lost all online banking functionality, according to the statement. The experts suspected Russia’s involvement in the fresh cyber-attacks.

Last month, state-sponsored hackers launched a “massive cyber-attack” on Ukraine, shutting down several government websites.

“As a result of a massive cyber-attack, the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government agencies are temporarily down,” the Foreign Ministry in Kiev had said.

“It’s too early to draw conclusions, but there is a long record of Russian assaults against Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying.

Among those affected were the Foreign Ministry’s, the National Security and Defence Council, and the government’s Cabinet of ministers’ websites. On some of the websites, a text in three languages — Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian — stated that all data uploaded to the network by Ukrainians had become public.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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