Ukraine’s government websites and banks hit by cyber attack

• The source of the attack is yet to be confirmed

• A cyber rapid-response team was deployed across Europe yesterday

The websites of Ukraine’s government, the foreign ministry, and state security service were offline on Wednesday as a result of a mass distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, said the government.

Head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, said in his Telegram channel that the attack began at around 4 PM local time, had affected banks as well. He did not mention the extent of the damage or the names of the banks affected.

A DDoS attack is when a hacker floods a victim’s network or server with traffic so that others are unable to access it.

The source of the attack is not yet confirmed but the outages come as Russia continues to position troops around Ukraine’s borders. 

Also read: Russia-linked crypto addresses received 74% of ransomware revenue in 2021

Russia has previously been accused of so-called hybrid warfare, combining cyber-attacks with traditional military activity, in Georgia and Crimea.

Not the first attack

In a separate attack last week, Ukraine’s government took down four government websites.

Around the same time, Ukraine’s Cyber Police said many residents had received text messages saying that ATMs in the country did not work, though it was unclear if any ATMs were affected, CNBC reported.

A cyber rapid-response team (CRRT) was deployed across Europe, after a call for help from Ukraine, yesterday, to help defend Ukraine from cyber-attacks - remotely and on-site in the country.

The newly formed team of eight to 12 experts, from Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Romania, and the Netherlands.

Also read: US to bar American entities from engaging with Russian banks if Ukraine is invaded

Inputs from CNBC