Ukraine's largest telecommunications company Kyivstar suffers the largest cyberattack of wartime, affecting millions of people
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Kyivstar (Київстар), a telecommunications company with 24 million users in Ukraine, revealed that it suffered a large-scale cyber attack on the morning of December 12, 2023 local time. Although no personal information was leaked as a result of this attack, a technical failure occurred and mobile communications and Internet access were temporarily unavailable. It is estimated that millions of people will be affected.
Ukraine's largest telecom operator shut down after cyberattack
https://therecord.media/kyivstar-cyberattack-telecom-shutdown-ukraine
Ukraine's largest mobile communications provider down after apparent cyber attack | CyberScoop
According to Kyivstar officials, the attack was carried out by a hacker who infiltrated a part of the company's internal systems, and in order to limit the scope of the attack's impact locally, Kyivstar and security authorities decided to completely shut down the system. After that, it is said that they are working on starting up the backup system.
An image published by Internet analyst Doug Madley shows that traffic began to decrease around 9 o'clock local time, and completely stopped by 12 noon.
Ukrainian mobile provider Kyivstar offline due to reported cyberattack. Kyivstar is one of the largest mobile operators in #Ukraine .
— Doug Madory (@DougMadory) December 12, 2023
From @kentikinc 's perspective, traffic began dropping at 07:00 UTC (9am local) before almost hitting zero at 10:00 UTC (12pm local). pic.twitter.com/A6Uy33Aodj
In a TV interview, Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov commented, ``We do not yet know when services will be restored. We are working to eliminate the impact of the attack and resume communications as soon as possible.'' .
Відео — Гендиректор 'Київстару' прокоментував ситуацію зі збоєм — Сторінка відео
https://tsn.ua/video/video-novini/gendirektor-kiyivstaru-prokomentuvav-situaciyu-zi-zboyem.html
Telecommunications companies serving Ukraine include Kyivstar with 24 million users, Vodafone with 19 million users and Lifecell with 8.5 million users.
Domestic roaming service has been introduced since 2022, and it is now possible to switch carriers if another company's base station is attacked or damaged in some way and becomes unusable. Because it was an attack on Kyivstar's core network instead, roaming services were unavailable.
However, because it is possible to change to a different carrier simply by replacing the SIM, a large number of users are migrating, and Vodafone said that the sudden increase in new subscribers had increased its network load by 30%. However, some services such as websites and mobile apps were down due to the increased load.
The Security Service of Ukraine is conducting criminal proceedings to investigate this attack. Although the suspect is still unknown, there is a possibility that a Russian agency may be behind the attacker.
Vodafone also revealed that there have been more than 240 cyber attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
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