The United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union have said Russia is responsible for a series of cyberattacks on Ukraineʼs Viasat communications company. The attacks began about an hour before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
This was reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom.
It is believed that the main target of the attack was the Ukrainian military, primarily communications, but it also affected wind farms and Internet users in Central Europe.
Viasat said at the time that "tens of thousands of terminals have been damaged and shut down and cannot be repaired."
The US governmentʼs website states that Russian military cyber operators used Wiper and WhisperGate to attack. At the same time, the invasion of private and government networks with these tools began in January 2022 and continues throughout the war.
The U.S. government says U.S. experts and technology are helping Ukraine identify cyber threats and recover from cyber incidents.
- Earlier, the British government accused the federal security service of the Russian Federation, the Russian Central Intelligence Agency, and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service of criminal cyber activity.
- Prior to the war, Ukrainian government websites and government websites were under heavy attack. Attacks were also carried out on banks and the "Diia" portal. Then the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov stated that the hacker attack on February 15 was the largest in the history of Ukraine. Fedorov reminded that the attack came from Russia, China, the Czech Republic and Uzbekistan. He estimated its value at millions of dollars.