Ukraine's government websites hit by major cyberattack amid border tension with Russia

A major cyberattack warned Ukrainians to "be afraid and expect the worst," on Thursday night, according to AP. The attack left certain government websites unusable leading Ukraine to launch an inquiry on Friday morning. Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Oleg Nikolenko said it was too early to identify who was behind the attack, but that Russia has been behind such attacks in the past, according to the media agency.

The cyberattack, which targeted the ministry of international affairs, the cabinet of ministers, and the security and defense council, among other targets, comes as Kyiv and its allies have warned of a possible new military offensive against Ukraine. However, Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in Ukraine's cyber-attacks.

According to AP, the message visible on hacked government websites, written in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, read, "Ukrainian! All your personal data was uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed, it is impossible to restore it. All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future."

On Thursday, the US cautioned that the risk of a Russian military invasion was significant. While Russia said talks were in process but had reached a stalemate as it tried to persuade the West to prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO and reverse decades of European alliance growth proposals. 

'Large part' of impacted Websites restored

According to Ukraine's State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection, no personal information has been disclosed. Later on Friday, Mykhailo Fedorov, the country's digital transformation minister, announced that 'a large part' of the impacted websites had been restored, according to AP.

According to Victor Zhora, deputy chair of the State Service of Special Communication, the attack has disrupted roughly 70 websites of both national and regional government agencies, Zhora said during a news conference on Friday. Whereas, Oleh Derevianko, a top private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm stated that the cyber attack amounted to a straightforward defacement of official websites. Hackers gained access to everyone's content management system.

Six Russians were indicted in October 2020 by the US for hacking Ukraine's power grid, the 2017 French elections, and the 2018 Winter Olympics. The six were accused of launching a malware attack named "NotPetya" that infected computers of businesses throughout the world, inflicting almost $1 billion in losses, according to the Justice Department at the time.

The new incident occurred at a time when tensions between Russia and the West are at an all-time high over Ukraine, a close ally of the US and Europe. In recent weeks, the West has accused Russia of mobilising tanks, artillery, and roughly 100,000 soldiers along Ukraine's war-torn eastern border in what NATO describes as invasion preparations.

(With inputs from agencies)

(Image: Unsplash)