BOSTON (Washington Insider Magazine) – Ukraine’s parliament, and several other government and financial websites, were targeted by a new wave of decentralized attacks on Wednesday, according to cybersecurity experts. Unidentified hackers also infected dozens and dozens of computers with dangerous malware, according to the researchers.
According to the experts, some of the compromised Computer systems were in Lithuania and Latvia.
The council of ministers and the foreign ministry were inaccessible early Thursday in Ukraine, as concerns of a Russian attack grew, while other sites were difficult to load, implying that the DDoS assaults were ongoing, according to ABC NEWS.
Officials have long predicted that cyber strikes would lead and follow any Russian military intervention, and experts said the action followed Putin’s playbook of combining cyberattacks with actual aggression.
ESET Research Labs claimed it discovered a previously unknown form of data-wiping virus on several computers throughout the nation on Wednesday. It’s unclear how many networks have been impacted.
According to Vikram Thakur, technical director of Symantec Threat Intelligence, the wiper virus has infected 3 organizations: Ukrainian government contractors in Lithuania and Latvia, as well as a banking institution in Ukraine. Both nations are NATO members.
According to Thakur, all 3 targets had strong ties to Ukraine’s leadership, and Symantec assessed the assaults were “highly targeted.” He estimated that about 50 Units at the financial firm were affected, with some data being erased.
When asked about the malware attack, Victor Zhora, a top Ukrainian cyber defense officer, remained silent.
The malware’s timing, according to Boutin, showed that it was developed in late December.
Wiper malware was discovered during a mid-January assault blamed on Russia, wherein the defacement of 70 government sites was used to hide incursions into government networks, where at least 2 servers were destroyed by wiper malware posing as ransomware.
Thakur noted it was premature to determine whether the virus detected Wednesday was as bad as the one that caused server disruption in January.
Since well before 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea and attempted to obstruct polls, cyberattacks have been a crucial tactic of Russian intervention in Ukraine. In 2007, they were again deployed against Estonia, and in 2008, they were used against Georgia.
