A hand is seen on a laptop with binary code displayed on the screen in front of Russian flag in this picture illustration taken August 19, 2022. REUTERS
Dec 20 (Reuters) – Russia has carried out a mass cyberattack on Ukraine’s state registries, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said late on Thursday, resulting in a temporary suspension of services.
The registries contain vital information about Ukrainian citizens such as births, deaths, marriages and property ownership.
“Today the largest external cyberattack in recent times occurred with Ukraine’s state registries,” Stefanishyna wrote on Facebook.
“As a result of this targeted attack, the work of the unified and state registries, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, was temporarily suspended.”
Stefanishyna said it was clear the attack was “carried out by the Russians to disrupt the work of the country’s critically important infrastructure”.
She said work to restore operations would require about two weeks, but offices would be providing some services already on Friday. An initial assessment, she said, showed other state services were unaffected.
“After restoration is completed, a thorough analysis of the attack will be conducted to increase protection against similar attacks in the future,” she wrote.
In the course of nearly 34 months of war, both Ukrainian and Russian institutions have been subjected to serious cyberattacks.
These include a mass attack on Ukrainian mobile provider Kyivstar in December 2023 and a series of attacks on Russian ministries last June.
Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jamie Freed
