Cyber Attack on Kyivstar: Ukraine Security Service Suspects Russia, Investigation Underway

The Security Service of Ukraine announced that it has opened a criminal investigation and sent agents to the offices of “Kyivstar”.

The service said it suspects Russia of the cyber attack.

“This is a war, it’s not only happening on the battlefield, it’s also happening in virtual space, and unfortunately, as a result of this war, we have suffered,” Kyivstar general manager Oleksandr Komarov said on state television. “Kyivstar” has approximately 24.3 million customers.

He said that the main goal of the attack was to cause maximum damage to Kyivstar’s information technology infrastructure, and admitted that the hackers partially succeeded.

“Our IT infrastructure was significantly damaged, access was limited, we could not fight against it virtually, so we physically disconnected “Kyivstar” from the network,” revealed Komarov, adding that the company is still working on restoring services.

“Kyivstar” announced on the social network “Facebook” that it suffered from a powerful cyber attack. “This caused a technical failure that resulted in a temporary unavailability of mobile communications and Internet access,” the company said, adding that no consumer data was compromised.

The Security Service of Ukraine announced that the investigation is under eight articles of the criminal code, including treason, sabotage, creation of malware and unauthorized interference with communications networks.

The Kyivstar cyberattack also affected other industries that depend on mobile roaming services.

The authorities of the city of Sumi announced that the air warning system will be temporarily out of order. The representative of PrivatBank announced that the operation of banks and ATMs was partially disrupted due to a cyber attack, and Monobank, one of Ukraine’s largest banks, experienced a powerful denial of access or DDoS attack.

Meanwhile, the Main Intelligence Service of Ukraine (GUR) announced that it had hacked the Russian tax system, adding that the operation was successful.

2023-12-12 17:53:53
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