New Delhi: Amid threats of Russian invasion, a series of cyberattacks on Tuesday pulled down the websites of the Ukrainian army, the defence ministry, and major banks causing fear among the Ukrainians.
According to a report by news agency AP, these attacks could be a smokescreen for a more serious and damaging cyber threat.
In Tuesday's attacks at least 10 major Ukrainian websites were unreachable including the foreign and culture ministries. The websites that were under attack also included two major banks of Ukraine.
As per AP, in such attacks, the websites are barraged with a flood of junk data packets leaving them unreachable.
A top Ukrainian cyber defence official, Victor Zhora told AP that there is no information of disruptive actions that could be hidden by the DDoS attacks. He added that the emergency response teams were working to recover the systems and identify the attackers.
Meanwhile, the customers at Ukraine’s largest state-owned bank, Privatbank, and state-owned Sberbank faced problems regarding online payments and bank apps due to these attacks.
The attackers were also targeting the hosting provider of Ukraine’s army and Privatbank, Dough Madory, director of internet analysis at the network management firm Kentik Inc told AP.
The Ukrainian Information Ministry’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, Zhora agency assured the people in an official statement that there was no threat to depositor’s funds. The statement added that there was no effect on the communications of Ukraine’s military forces.
Till now the attackers have not been identified. The ministry statement said, “Quick attribution in cyberattacks is typically difficult, as aggressors often try to hide their tracks.” We need to analyze logs from IT providers, it added.
Although, the statement suggested Russian involvement in the cyberattacks.
“It is possible that the aggressor resorted to tactics of petty mischief because his aggressive plans aren't working overall,” the Ukrainian statement said.
Oleh Derevianko, a leading private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm, said “Ukrainians are always worried that such noisy cyberattacks could be masking something more sinister.”
On Tuesday, Russia also tried to reduce the tensions regarding the possible invasion by saying that they are reducing the military drills around the Ukrainian border, however, the western countries are not convinced about it yet.
Christian Sorensen, the CEO of the cybersecurity firm SightGain who previously worked for U.S. Cyber Command says that “the purpose at this stage is to increase leverage in negotiations.”
This is not the first time, Ukraine has been under cyber attack. It has been a subject of aggression in cyberspace since 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. However, that attack did not lead to much damage.
A message was posted simultaneously on dozens of defaced Ukrainian government websites that said: Be afraid and expect the worst. However, the experts belied it to be by design considering the capabilities of Russian hackers.
Similar attacks were carried out in 2015 and 2016 as well. At that time, Ukraine's power grid attributed to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency temporarily knocked out power.
In 2017, the NotPetya virus that targeted business companies working in Ukraine caused a loss of 10 billion worldwide.