• 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 due to a mass Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, reported 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 and had affected banks. 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.
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
Ukraine’s government took down four government websites in a separate attack last week.
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 CNBC reported it was unclear if any ATMs were affected.
A cyber rapid-response team (CRRT) were deployed across Europe after a call for help from Ukraine's to defend itself against cyberattacks. The team comprises experts from Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Romania, and the Netherlands.
Inputs from CNBC