Ukraine has been hit by a “massive” cyber-attack, with the websites of several government departments including the ministry of foreign affairs and the education ministry knocked out.
Officials said it was too early to draw any conclusions but they pointed to a “long record” of Russian cyber assaults against Ukraine, with the attack coming after security talks between Moscow and the US and its allies this week ended in stalemate.
Suspected Russian hackers left a message on the foreign ministry website, according to reports. It said: “Ukrainians! … All information about you has become public. Be afraid and expect worse. It’s your past, present and future.”
The message reproduced the Ukrainian flag and map crossed out. It mentioned the Ukrainian insurgent army, or UPA, which fought against the Soviet Union during the second world war. There was also a reference to “historical land”.
In a message to the Guardian, the foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said: “As a result of a massive cyber-attack, the website of the ministry of foreign affairs and other government agencies are temporarily down.”
He added: “Our specialists have already started restoring the work of IT systems and the cyber-police has opened an investigation.”
On Thursday, Russian envoys sounded a bleak note after discussions this week with the OSCE in Vienna, as well as Nato and the US. Sergei Ryabkov, who led Russia’s delegation, said talks had hit a dead end.
The Kremlin has demanded an assurance Ukraine and Georgia will never join Nato. It wants Nato to remove troops and equipment from its member states in eastern Europe, and to return deployment to 1997-levels, before Nato expanded.
Russia has mobilised 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine and sent in military hardware. On Friday Russia’s defence ministry announced that further equipment would be relocated from the east of the country as part of what it said was an “exercise”.
Ukraine has been repeatedly targeted since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and kickstarted a war in the eastern Donbas region. About 288,000 cyber-attacks took place in the first 10 months of 2021, according to official figures, with 397,000 in 2020.
The attacks have also been directed at critical infrastructure. In winter 2015 suspected Russian hackers took out parts of the country’s power grid, which led to almost a quarter of a million Ukrainians losing power and heat. A repeat attack happened in 2016.
In 2017, suspected Russian hackers unleashed the NotPetya virus, causing mayhem. Banks, newspapers and leading companies were targeted.
