Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has confirmed that the official website Ukraine.ua has been subject to a cyber-attack.
The Ukraine.ua site was attacked on January 26. The digital portal for foreign audiences has been restored but the MFA has said temporary problems are still possible in the near future.
The 26 January incident follows another cyber-incident on the website of the MFA earlier in the month, which saw the MFA website and other government agencies temporarily taken down.
With growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine most suspect these attacks are being carried out by Russian actors.
Russia has previously been accused of directing cyber-attacks to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. In December 2015 a cyber attack on Ukraine’s power grid resulted in outages for thousands of people and was attributed to a Russian threat group called Sandworm.
In 2016 Ukraine’s power grid was subject to a cyber-attack which saw left the northern part of Kiev without electricity.
Some fear that with today’s heightened tensions between the two nations we could see this type of attack again.
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Warning of more to come
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) published a statement on 28 January warning UK organizations to take action in response to the current situation in and around Ukraine.
The NCSC urges organizations to consult guidance published in response to the recent malicious cyber incidents in Ukraine.
“The NCSC is committed to raising awareness of evolving cyber threats and presenting actionable steps to mitigate them. While we are unaware of any specific cyber threats to UK organizations in relation to events in Ukraine, we are monitoring the situation closely and it is vital that organizations follow the guidance to ensure they are resilient,” said Paul Chichester, director of operations at the NCSC.
Guidance includes patching systems, enabling multi-factor authentication, implementing an effective incident response plan, checking backups are working, ensuring online defenses are working as expected and keeping up to date with the latest threat and mitigation information.