Ukraine has reported a large-scale cyber attack on government websites

The websites of Ukrainian ministries were blocked and threatened with threats on Friday morning. It is still not clear who was behind the attack – however, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry indicated that there were suspicions.

After wide Internet attack It is in Ukraine Several government websites were unavailable on Friday. Because of a “massive hacker attack,” the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a number of other government agencies are temporarily unavailable, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry wrote, “Our specialists are already working on restoring our IT systems.” Affairs, Oleg Nikolenko, on Facebook.

According to a report in the newspaper “Ukranskaya Pravda”, the websites of the Cabinet, several ministries and national emergency services and the website of the State Services, where electronic passports of Ukrainians and vaccination certificates are stored, were affected by the cyber attack. .

According to the report, the hacked sites contained a message in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, alleging that the personal data of Ukrainians had been leaked. “Be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, your present and your future,” among other things. However, Ukrainian security officials said that no personal information was disclosed.

The foreign representative of the European Union confirms support

Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, said personal data was safe because “the functions of the sites, not the logs” were affected by the hacking attack. Fedorov said officials have closed some sites to limit damage and investigate the attacks. He added that a “large portion” of the affected pages had been restored.

It was not clear who was behind the hacker attack. However, it comes at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and after talks between Moscow and the West made no progress this week. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nikolenko told the Associated Press that it was too early to draw any conclusions. However, there is a long history of Russian cyber attacks against Ukraine. Moscow has long denied involvement in previous cyber attacks against Ukraine.

Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy coordinator, said the EU is ready to mobilize all resources to provide Ukraine with technical assistance and help improve the country’s ability to defend against cyber attacks. On the sidelines of the EU foreign ministers meeting in the French port city of Brest, he said the EU will mobilize cyber defense experts.

The number of Russian troops on the border is estimated at 100,000

Borrell added that he will ask member states to allow Ukraine to benefit from cyber defense resources within the EU cooperation platform Pesco, even if the country is not an EU member. “We will mobilize all our resources to help Ukraine deal with these cyber attacks,” Borrell said. “Unfortunately, we were expecting that to happen.” When asked who might be behind the hack, he said, “I can’t point to anyone because I don’t have proof, but you can imagine.”

The United States estimates that Russia has about 100,000 troops near Ukraine – a troop buildup that has raised fears of an invasion. Moscow rejects this and rejects Washington’s request to withdraw the army. The Kremlin has demanded security guarantees from the West, including a ban on NATO’s eastward expansion. The United States and NATO are not ready for this. This week’s talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva, between Russia and NATO in Brussels, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in Vienna, did not produce any rapprochement.

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dpa