Ukraine: Military defense agencies and banks hit by cyberattacks

Ukraine ‘s defense agencies and two state-owned banks were hit by Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

The Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine and state-owned banks, Privatbank (Ukraine’s largest bank) and Oschadbank were hit by Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.

The website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has been taken down by the wave of DDoS attacks.

“Starting from the afternoon of February 15, 2022, there is a powerful DDOS attack on a number of information resources of Ukraine. In particular, this caused interruptions in the work of web services of Privatbank and Oschadbank. The websites of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine were also attacked.” reads the statement published by Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communication and Information Protection. “As of 19:30, the work of banking web resources has been resumed. A working group of experts from the main subjects of the national cybersecurity system is taking all necessary measures to localize and resist the cyberattack.” 

While the website of the Oschadbank bank initially remained accessible, the customers were not able to access their online banking accounts. At the time of this writing, the website of the financial institution is not reachable.

Threat actors also hot Privatbank and defaced its website, threat actors added the following message: “BUSTED! PRIVATBANK WAF is watching you)”

The Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security also published a post on Facebook explaining that clients of the Privatbank were not able to perform payments, however threat actors did not steal funds from their bank accounts.

Yesterday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) today revealed the country is the target of an ongoing “wave of hybrid warfare” conducted by Russia-linked malicious actors. Threat actors aim at destabilizing the social contest in the country and instilling fear and untrust in the country’s government.

The SSU said the campaign is linked to Russian intelligence agencies that are spreading disinformation through social networks and other media.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Ukraine)