“Could have been bribery or phishing": MP on cyberattack on registers of the Ministry of Justice
Kyiv • UNN
The state registers of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine have suffered a large-scale cyberattack. According to MP Fediyenko, the attack could have been caused by bribery of employees or phishing, but all data was saved.
The reason for the large-scale cyberattack on the state registers of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine could be both phishing and bribery of employees who had access to these registers. This was stated by Oleksandr Fediyenko, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Cyberspace Security, Government Communications, Cryptographic Protection of Information of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, in a commentary to Radio Liberty (Svoboda.Ranok project), UNN reports.
According to the MP, the attack was well-prepared, and the login came from a top-level account.
"There may be components of recruiting an employee of this institution, there may be a multi-level mechanism for planting a flash drive so that it gets inside the person's perimeter and is turned on. There may be phishing of the computers of all employees who may be working in a closed loop, remotely, which is prohibited in principle. So it's definitely not Vasya, Petya, or anyone else. This is a well-planned cyber attack that could have been carried out given a fairly systematic organization," Fediyenko said.
The MP says that, according to his information, the databases were saved, so the registers can be restored.
"If they have images somewhere (data archive - ed.), which I hope is good, I have been confirmed by closed sources, I think that in a week or two they will start to gradually restore them," Fediyenko emphasized.
For reference
Phishing is a type of cyberattack that uses fake emails and messages to trick a person into providing confidential information.
Addendum
Ukrainian Justice Minister Olha Stefanishyna said that enemy hackers had carried out one of the largest cyberattacks on Ukraine's state registers.
Stefanishyna also noted that all the datathat was in the registers was saved and was subject to recovery.
On December 22, First Deputy Minister of Justice Mykola Kucheryavenko said that it would take about two weeks to fully restore the state registers of the Ministry of Justice, which were subjected to the largest-scale Russian cyberattack.
