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This Friday, January 14, Ukraine denounced a massive cyberattack against government websites, including those of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite the attack, the Government affirmed that the citizens’ data is safe and accused Russia of being behind the incident.
Ukraine denounced this Friday a massive cyberattack against government websites, including those of the Cabinet of Ministers and various ministries, including Foreign Affairs and Education. “Due to a global attack perpetrated on the night of January 13-14, 2022, the official website of the Ministry of Education and Science is temporarily out of service,” the entity posted on its Facebook account.
On the Foreign Affairs website, the hackers left an intimidating announcement in Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian: “Ukrainians! Your personal data was posted on the network. All data on the computer is destroyed and cannot be recovered. All information information about you has been made public (…) This is for your past, present and future.”
Sources tell me ~15 sites in Ukraine – all using October content management system – have been defaced, including Min of Foreign Affairs, Cabinet of Ministers, Min of Ed, Emergency Services, Treasury, Environmental Protection. Attackers apparently used this: https://t.co/7ojWbjZWDd pic.twitter.com/FaepCsRO5E
— Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) January 14, 2022
Despite the announcement, the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mijailo Feodorov, affirmed that the Ukrainians can rest assured that their data was not affected. This was confirmed by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) given that the attack would not have modified the content of the affected websites.
Since the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in France, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, has expressed his “strongest condemnation” of the cyber attack. “Sadly, we knew this could happen. Of course I can’t point to anyone because I have no evidence, but we can imagine,” he stressed.
Ukraine denounces the “Russian footprint” in the attack
It is not the first cyber attack Ukraine has received in recent years. Nor is it the first time that, like today, Kiev accuses Russia of being behind it. The incident comes at a new moment of tension between the two neighboring countries and just after the negotiations between Russia and NATO to prevent a Russian military intervention in Ukraine ended abruptly.
According to the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, there is a “Russian footprint” behind the attack and to erase it, the hackers had to allude (in their message) to Bolín, the OUN-UPA, Galichina, Polesia and other historical territories. It is clear that this was done deliberately to hold Poland responsible for the cyber attack.”
All the territories referred to by the Ukrainian entity are historical territories that were once under Polish control. For its part, the UPA is the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the military arm of the OUN, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime during World War II.
From the center it is added that “Russia and its satellites have been working for a long time to confront the two neighboring and friendly countries”, taking advantage of the historical affronts between Kiev and Warsaw. NATO also condemned the attack and stated that “in the next few days” it will sign a cyber cooperation agreement with Kiev.
With EFE and local media
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