Ukraine blames Russia for a ‘powerful cyberattack’ on its telecom
Ukrainian state-owned telecommunications company Ukrtelecom experienced a cyberattack. Ukraine accused Russia of what it called a powerful cyberattack.
Ukrainian state-owned telecommunications company Ukrtelecom experienced a cyberattack. Ukraine accused Russia of what it called a powerful cyberattack.
“Today, the enemy launched a powerful cyberattack against #Ukrtelecom ’s IT infrastructure,” the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine tweeted.
Ukrainian officials hinted that Russia was behind the attack, aiming to disrupt military communications.
“In order to preserve its network infrastructure and continue providing services to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and other military formations as well as to the customers, #Ukrtelecom has temporarily limited its services to the majority of private users and business clients,” it said.
According to NetBlocks, which monitors internet service disruptions, connectivity collapsed to 13% of pre-war levels.
“Real-time network data show an ongoing and intensifying nation-scale disruption to service, which is the most severe registered since the invasion by Russia,” Netblocks said.
It took approximately 15 hours since the start of the disruption for the internet connectivity to go up again.
Hackers might have targeted Ukrtelecom to disrupt Ukraine’s military communications. Russia has been at a disadvantage since the Ukrainian telecommunications operators had cut off the communications of the Russian military, blocking the access of phones with Russian numbers to their networks. As a result, Russian soldiers began to steal phones from Ukrainians to stay in touch with their counterparts.
Recently, Ukraine detained a hacker who allegedly aided the Russian military. He provided the occupiers with mobile communications in Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine said (SSU).
“With this collaborator, the enemy: made anonymous phone calls from Russia to the mobile phones of the invaders in Ukraine; sent SMS to Ukrainian security officers and civil servants with proposals to surrender and side with the occupiers; passed commands and instructions to advanced groups of Russian invaders,” SSU said.