By John Ikani
Ukraine said on Tuesday that the websites of the country’s Defence Ministry and Armed Forces, as well as two state banks were hit by a cyberattack that could have Russian origins.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said in a tweet Tuesday that the websites were down, and that it was likely being targeted by a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack.
The affected sites include the Oschadbank state savings bank and Privat24 — two of the country’s largest financial institutions.
The Defence Ministry site showed an error message saying the site was “undergoing technical maintenance”.
It will be recalled that this is not the first cyber attack on Ukrainian sites and infrastructure. On February 14, 2022, the websites of state bodies were attacked – this was discussed in detail in the article “Attack on government websites: a new chapter of the cyber war against Ukraine”.
Concerns have been growing over what the West believes is the Kremlin’s plan to invade Ukraine as it has amassed 130,000 troops near its border. The US officials said on Monday they expected an invasion “any day now”, despite Russian leader Vladimir Putin repeatedly denying he had any intent to attack.
Russia announced on Tuesday that it was withdrawing some troops from the border following the conclusion of military exercises, but that did little to allay fears of an invasion as Moscow fell short of disclosing exactly how many troops were returning to base, or where they were heading.
