Cyber specialists of the Security Service of Ukraine helped to repel new cyberattacks by Russia against one of the national mobile operators Kyivstar. This was announced by the head of the SBU cybersecurity department, Ilya Vityuk, in an interview with Reuters, UNN reports with reference to the SBU.
The SBU not only helped Kyivstar resume operations in a few days, but also repelled new cyberattacks. After a large-scale hack, we prevented a number of attempts to cause even more damage to the operator. The enemy expected to strike several times in a row to leave people without communication for as long as possible. In this case, other operators might not have been able to withstand the prolonged overload of their networks
According to him, the SBU continues to investigate the large-scale hacking of Kyivstar under several articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
"SBU cyber specialists are currently examining some samples of malware used by the enemy. The attack was carefully prepared for many months," said Vitiuk.
He confirmed that the attack was carried out by the Sandworm hacker group, which is a regular unit of Russian military intelligence and has previously repeatedly carried out cyberattacks on Ukrainian targets, including telecommunications operators and Internet providers.
Vitiuk noted that this cyberattack had a significant impact on the civilian population, but did not have a serious effect on military communications, as the Defense Forces use different algorithms and communication protocols.
In total, according to the SBU, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, law enforcement officers have worked out almost 9 thousand cyberattacks on state resources and critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.
Recall
On December 12, the network of mobile operator Kyivstar (Kyivstar) was subjected to a powerful hacker attack, which caused a technical failure.
However, on December 20, the company fully restored its services after the cyberattack, including international roaming, which was the last to be restored.