Ukrainian embassy in London suffers from constant cyberattacks
Just as it has recently seemed like calm before the storm on the cyber front, the Ukrainian embassy to the UK reported being under siege, following a wave of cyberattacks.
The embassy has announced that its official website and emails currently do not work, providing alternative email addresses for communication in a tweet.
Oliver Pinson-Roxburgh, CEO at Bulletproof and Defense.com, suggested that there is currently little information about the nature of these attacks, but they seem to be in line with
distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that have hit Ukrainian and Russian sites in recent days, according to Business Insider.
During DDoS attacks, threat actors utilize a huge numbers of bots to take networks offline. As a result, it can take a long time for a system to recover. And even then, such attacks might have a variety of unpleasant consequences – from failed commercial systems to severe disruptions.
“The cyberattack on the London embassy showcases that events in Ukraine are not operating in a vacuum. Businesses around the world need to be prepared to deal with the rapidly evolving threat landscape, especially considering the new types of wiper malware that are currently targeting Ukrainian networks and hackers,” Pinson-Roxburgh said.
News drop after the US issued warnings to its banks to prepare for cyberattacks amid strict Russian sanctions. Previously, the European Central Bank and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued similar warnings to their financial institutions.
This is not the first time the Ukrainian government websites suffer from DDoS attacks in the recent days, although the scale of them has not been as large as initially anticipated.
After the recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) by Russia, websites of the Ukrainian parliament, Council of Ministers, Ministry of Foreign Affairs stopped responding following a series of DDoS attacks that have also affected local banks.