Kyivstar is currently working to restore its disrupted services, while Ukraine also claims it managed to infect Russia’s federal taxation service with malware.
Broadband and mobile provider Kyivstar claims to have been hit by a massive cyberattack from hackers that has disrupted its services in Ukraine.
The company claims this cyberattack caused a technical failure that has impacted its mobile and internet services. The attack has also damaged the company’s IT infrastructure and prevented many Ukrainians from being warned of Russian air assaults, Reuters reports
Kyivstar provides mobile services to around 24m customers and its internet offerings to roughly 1m homes. The company’s website is down and only contains a post about the ongoing disruption.
Kyivstar CEO Alexander Komarov has attributed the attack to Russia, amid the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The company said it has informed law enforcement agencies and special government services about the cyberattack, according to a translated post on its website.
On a translated post on X, the company said it has managed to partially restore its fixed line services and that it aims to restore its other impacted operations today (13 December). Kyivstar warned that this restoration my occur gradually and that it would compensate all subscribers and corporate clients who were impacted by the cyberattack.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the risks of cyberattacks, as Ukraine’s critical infrastructure faced multiple alleged attacks prior to the invasion last year, which intensified as the invasion began. Various cyberattacks have been reported during the invasion.
In May 2022, Kyivstar said it could only supply connectivity to around 25pc of the people in Donetsk that it could prior to the Russian invasion and 10pc in Luhansk. Both regions were occupied by Russia during the invasion.
Meanwhile, Ukraine claims it conducted its own cyberattack against Russia recently and that it disrupted the country’s taxation service. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence claims it managed to infect thousands of regional servers with malware, impacting taxation services throughout Russia and in Crimea.
The ministry claims it attacked a Russian IT company that services the country’s federal taxation services in the same way.
“As a result of two cyberattacks, the configuration files, which have been ensuring the functioning of the extensive taxation system of the Russian federation for years, were completely eliminated ― the entire database and its backup copies were destroyed,” Ukraine’s ministry claims.
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