The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky holds a joint press conference with the Presidents of Poland Andrzej Duda and the President of Lithuania Gitanas Navseda in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 23, 2022.
Umit Bektas Reuters
On Wednesday, as a result of a mass distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), several Ukrainian government websites were offline, said the head of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov. said in his Telegram channel.
According to Fedorov, the attack, which also affected some banks, began at about 16 o’clock local time. He did not say which banks were attacked and what the amount of damage was.
As of Wednesday morning Eastern time, among those not working were the websites of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Parliament (Rada). Government websites were offline when officials tried to switch traffic elsewhere to minimize damage, he said.
A DDoS attack is when a hacker fills a victim’s network or server with traffic so that others cannot access it.
The source of the attack has not been confirmed yet, but shutdowns are taking place in Russia continues to accumulate troops near the borders of Ukraine. President Joe Biden said Tuesday Russia has launched an “invasion” after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine and announced sanctions against Russian banks, the country’s sovereign debt and several individuals close to the Russian government.
Ukraine reported a separate attack last week that removed four government websites, NBC News reports. Around the same time, the cyber police of Ukraine said that many residents received text messages that ATMs in the country are not working, although it is unclear whether the ATMs were really affected, according to NBC News.
Russia liability denied for the attack on Ukrainian government websites last week.