Hackers hacked the websites of Ukrainian ministries and left a threatening message there

On the night of January 14, hackers hacked into the websites of a number of Ukrainian government ministries and posted threatening messages there. The SBU says that there was no leakage of personal data, reports with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

In particular, the websites of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Sports, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and the website of the State Treasury did not work. The government services website “Diya” was also subject to a cyber attack (its mobile application works fine).

An appeal appeared on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and some other departments: “Ukrainian! All your personal data has been uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed and cannot be recovered. All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future. For Volhynia, for OUN-UPA, for Galicia, for Polissya and for historical lands.”

The message was published in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

There was no data leak

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported a hacker attack on a number of government websites and assured that there was no data leak.

“A provocative message was posted on the main page of these sites. At the same time, the content of the sites has not been changed, and, according to available information, there has been no leakage of personal data,” the department said in a statement.
The SBU added that the work of other government sites was suspended in order to prevent attacks on other resources, as well as to localize a technical problem.

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The SBU, cyber police and state special communications are investigating the incident.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine was one of the first to report the hacker attack.

“As a result of a massive hacker attack, the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government bodies are temporarily not working. Our specialists are already engaged in restoring the operation of IT systems. We apologize for any inconvenience,” said Oleg Nikolenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on Twitter.

On the night of January 13-14, the Ministry of Education also reported about the "global attack".

The department called for the use of other web resources, including the official pages of ministries in social networks.

Earlier in an interview, the Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov, responsible for the development and implementation of the Diya public services website, assured that all personal data of Ukrainians is securely protected. The ministry assured that the portal has now been disabled, like a number of other government sites, in order to prevent the attack from spreading to other resources.

“Diya is a safe product that does not store personal data, but only reflects it from registers,” says the department’s website.

Attacks on energy companies

One of the recent large-scale hacker attacks in Ukraine occurred in 2017.

On June 27, the Petya.A virus paralyzed the websites of many Ukrainian companies and authorities. In Ukraine, the virus infected the computers of a number of ministries, energy companies, banks, media outlets, mobile operators, gas station networks, the Kiev Boryspil airport and the capital's metro.

The official website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine did not work either.

The Security Service of Ukraine accused the Russian intelligence services of involvement in this attack. Referring to the data, the SBU pointed to the same hacker groups that attacked the financial system, transport and energy facilities of Ukraine in December 2016.
In 2016, several Ukrainian regional energy distribution companies were victims of a cyber attack that led to power outages at 80 consumers.

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The attack on Prykarpattyaoblenergo turned out to be the most large-scale in terms of consequences. Then, within a few hours, ten districts of the Ivano-Frankivsk region were de-energized.

At the same time, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection reported an attempt to “infect” the computers of the Boryspil International Airport with the same virus that was used in attacks on energy companies.

In December 2016, the State Treasury, the Ministry of Finance and the Pension Fund were subjected to a cyber attack. Because of them, budget payments for hundreds of millions of hryvnias were blocked for several days, and the websites of the Ministry of Finance and the State Treasury did not work.

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