Cyberattack on Ukrzaliznytsia: an expert talks about cybersecurity problems

Yesterday, Ukrzaliznytsia's services became the target of a cyberattack, which made it impossible to purchase tickets online. While experts are trying to fix the problem, train tickets can only be purchased at railway ticket offices. A journalist from UNN spoke with cybersecurity expert Kostyantyn Korsun to find out how a hacker attack of this scale became possible and what needs to be done to avoid similar situations in the future.

From the point of view of cybersecurity, Ukrzaliznytsia has long had problems. Unprofessionalism, corruption. This is a state-owned company, and in our state-owned companies, relatives and friends are hired, but not professionals, because professionals need to be provided with market salaries and decent conditions, and Ukrzaliznytsia cannot do this. Sooner or later, this was bound to happen

Korsun reminded that this is not the first attack by cybercriminals on Ukrzaliznytsia's services, but the company's management has not drawn any conclusions from this.

"Ukrzaliznytsia has been poked in the nose about its colossal problems. They have already been hacked in 2018 and 2019. But you see, they are not taught. Years pass, registers are hacked, Kyivstar is hacked, Diia is hacked. No one learns anything, and how can you resist something if you don't learn the lessons," the expert said.

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He added that in order to avoid similar situations in the future, it is necessary to introduce systemic changes, first of all, to cooperate with professionals who will be able to counter such attacks. This is a complex and expensive process.

There are no simple solutions, because this is a complex problem. Ukrzaliznytsia is a huge company with a huge number of resources, a huge number of people. It was necessary to hire or otherwise cooperate with specialists, form a professional team that would be able to protect services from cyberattacks. And this is long, difficult and expensive

Korsun also noted that professionalism and qualification are the main conditions for such situations not to happen again.

"The key here is the professionalism of the approach, qualification. If this is not the case, and everything is replaced by cronyism or imitation of vigorous activity, then everything ends approximately like this," he summarized.

Addition

Ukrzaliznytsia's systems were attacked by cyberattack, the company said. Initially, they pointed to a technical failure of the IT system. It is noted that online ticket sales have been suspended, but train traffic is stable and their operation is without delays.

Also, representatives of the railway carrier reported that the number of operating ticket offices has been increased to provide everyone with tickets. Ukrzaliznytsia assures that the ticket offices are working effectively and on average it takes a person 15 minutes to wait to buy a ticket.