The US businessman Elon Musk said that his company Starlink, which provides satellite Internet services, is constantly repelling cyberattacks from Russia, but the Russians are stepping up their efforts.
At the beginning of the war, Musk handed over many Starlink terminals to Ukraine to provide communications and internet to civilians and the military at the front.
The attack on the KA-SAT Viasat network (VSAT.O) in late February occurred just as Russian armored vehicles entered Ukraine. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the purpose of the cyberattack was "to violate Ukrainian command and control during the invasion, and these actions spread to other European countries." This was reported by Reuters.
The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, called the hacking of the satellite Internet "intentional and malicious", and the EU Council said it had caused "indiscriminate disruptions" in Ukraine and several EU countries.
The shutdown of Viasat remains the most visible cyber attack since Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine, in part because it had immediate consequences for satellite Internet users in Europe, and damaged modems often had to be replaced manually.