The Ukrainian government on Sunday formally accused Russia of orchestrating the attacks on the websites of state institutions and government agencies last week.
“All evidence points to Russia being behind the cyberattack,” the Digital Transformation Department said in a statement. “Moscow continues to wage a hybrid war and is actively building up its forces in the information and cyberspace.”
The purpose of the attack, the ministry said, was “not only to intimidate the public,” but also “to destabilize the situation in Ukraine by shutting down the public sector and undermining Ukrainians’ confidence in the authorities.”
However, Russia denied any involvement in the invasion. “We have nothing to do with this, and Russia has nothing to do with these cyberattacks,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, told CNN, adding: “We are almost used to Ukrainians blaming Russia for everything, even them. bad weather”.
The disclosure comes after dozens of Ukrainian government websites were vandalized on Friday with a disturbing message threatening their citizens to “fear and expect the worst” and alleging their personal information had been hacked.
According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the attack was carried out after the attackers gained access to the infrastructure of a private company that had the right to manage some of the affected sites.
Separately, Microsoft warned of the use of destructive data-deletion malware disguised as ransomware in attacks against several organizations in Ukraine. The company, which calls this new malware family WhisperGate, has listed it in its threat cluster as DEV-0586.
