Due to a cyber-attack on Thursday early in the morning, the Ukrainian government websites went down. Most of the government department websites, including the ministry of education, Foreign Affairs Ministry, and others, are shut down.
The different and more hacking events occurred just a few hours ago. According to cyber security experts, the data-wiping software was found on many computers in Ukraine. This problem raises fears that a cyber attack could be destructive amid Russia’s military escalation.
The incidents have been seen as an apparent increase in cyber attacks, targeting the United States and its allies of Ukrainian infrastructure. Those are pointed out the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine and imposed sanctions against Russian banks and their elites. In a live broadcast, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced military actions within Ukraine’s Donbas region on Thursday morning, calling on Ukrainian forces to surrender their weapons and return home.
The chief technology officer at cyber security company Mandiant said to the Cable News Network that “we are aware of several public and private organizations in Ukraine affected by the devastation of malware today.”
The hacking incident occurred when United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued an appeal at last 11th hour to Russia to limit military action.
“If the operation is planned, I have only one request to make from the bottom of the heart.” President Putin must stop his soldiers from attacking Ukraine,” Antonio Guterres said in an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday evening in New York. “Give peace a chance. Many people have already passed away.”
US officials have warned that Russia is likely to use cyber-related operations as part of military operations in Ukraine. US President Joe Biden said last month that the United States might respond with cyber operations on its own if Russia launches further cyber-attacks inside Ukraine.
The disruptions to the websites early Thursday in Ukraine came after the news of Wednesday afternoon about cyberattacks that temporarily took off the websites of the Ukrainian Parliament, Security Service, and Cabinet of Ministers.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the hacked-up attack that caused such destruction or the disruptions to websites early on Thursday morning. The Ukrainian government did not immediately reply to Cable News Network requests for comments.
It was reported earlier that “a continuing” of cyberattacks struck official Ukrainian websites in February. It was reported that the White House blamed Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, as the source of these hacks, which refers to as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks because they overload servers with fake traffic and then knock websites offline. The Russian Embassy in Washington has denied the accusations. Its State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine claimed cyber attacks against websites.
However, of all cyber-attacks, the destructive data-wiping program -also known by the name “wiper” malware- could be the most devastating. Wiper malware usually erases information from computers and renders them unusable. It could slow down organizations trying to remain online during an event of a conflict.
The cyber-attack impacted at most at least one Ukrainian financial institution and at least two Ukrainian public contractors. It includes one of which has an office in Latvia country and one with an office on the territory of Lithuania country. Vikram Thakur, the director of Broadcom’s cyber security division Symantec, explained to CNN.
The malicious code harmed “large organizations” in Ukraine According to cyber security company ESET that has a variety of clients across Ukraine. The malware was created in the last two months but “launched only today. Also, we have observed the malware only within Ukraine,” said Jean-Ian Boutin, who is the ESET’s head of threat research at ESET.
Suppose there is a bigger war that involves Russia as well as Ukraine. In that case, US officials are concerned that cyber or kinetic attacks might shut off the broadcast media and transportation network or in Ukraine. According to a top official of the Department of Homeland Security told officials from the state and local government on Tuesday.
The main goal currently in the present for Ukrainian government agencies and key businesses is resilience to withstand attacks from hackers. Some organizations have been able to re-connect quickly following DDoS attacks that occurred last week. The US and various other government agencies and private sector experts provide cyber security assistance to Ukraine in the field and remotely.
“With an elite cyber power such as Russia, it isn’t possible to be able to block them 100 percent, so the aim is resilience,” senator. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who sits on the U.S.Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN.
When asked if the US should carry out its hacking operations as a response to the Russian actions taking place in Ukraine, Mark Warner said the US generally does not want to “opening Pandora’s Box in terms of cyber-escalation.”
“So far, this has been the correct method,” Warner added. “But we have not seen the kind of situation in which Putin is prepared to send an army of 190,000” and even threaten Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, he said. “We do not know what he will do in cyberspace.”