Google offers free DDoS protection to Ukrainian organizations

Google continues to see DDoS (distributed denial of service) attempts against Ukrainian sites and urges anyone close to the conflict to use Google protection for free.

Ukrainian organizations, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Liveuamap, and other services designed to help people find information, keep experiencing DDoS attacks.

As a response to the growing cyberthreat, Google expanded the eligibility for its free protection against DDoS attacks (Project Shield). Over 150 organizations in Ukraine are now using the service, and Google urges any institution in close proximity to the conflict to register for Project Shield.

“We’ll continue to take action, identify bad actors, and share relevant information with others across industry and governments, with the goal of bringing awareness to these issues, protecting users, and preventing future attacks. And while we are actively monitoring activity related to Ukraine and Russia, we continue to be just as vigilant in relation to other threat actors globally, to ensure that they do not take advantage of everyone’s focus on this region,” Google said.

In the last 12 months, Google’s Threat Analysis Group has issued hundreds of government-backed attack warnings to Ukrainian users, alerting them that they have been the target of government-backed hacking, largely emanating from Russia.

FancyBear, a threat actor attributed to Russian intelligence agency GRU, has conducted several large credential phishing campaigns targeting ukr.net users. UkrNet is a Ukrainian media company.

Belarusian threat actor Ghostwriter has also been active recently. It has conducted credential phishing campaigns against the Polish and Ukrainian government and military organizations over the past week.

China-based threat actor Mustang Panda has targeted European entities with lures related to the Ukrainian invasion.

Google is only one among many companies providing support to Ukrainian organizations for free. Recently, Cloudflare extended its services to the Ukrainian government, telecom, and any Ukrainian organization facing an attack at no cost.

NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) agreed to Ukraine’s membership in the NATO CCDCOE as a Contributing Participant.