Multiple Ukrainian government websites taken down in major cyber attack

Messages left in three languages threatening publication of private data

Several Ukrainian government websites came under a sustained hacking attack last night, with the attackers leaving menacing messages apparently aimed at intimidating aimed at Ukrainian citizens.

The attack occurred late Thursday and in the early hours of Friday morning, according to a Facebook post by the Ministry of Education and Science.

The Ukrainian government says it has restored many of the affected websites, but at the time of writing some, including those of the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were inaccessible.

On some of the affected sites, the attackers left messages in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish, threatening that citizens' private data would be made public.

"All information about you has become public. Be afraid and expect worse. It's your past, present and future," the hackers wrote, according to Ukrainian media reports.

The Ukrainian government, denied that any personal data had been leaked.

The Ukrainian government has not so far officially named the suspected perpetrator of what seem to be DDoS attacks, but pointed a finger at Russia. Saying it was "too early to draw conclusions", a Foreign Ministry spokesperson added, "but there is a long history of Russian attacks on Ukraine."

The Energy Ministry said that a police unit specialising in cyber attacks had begun an investigation.

The EU has called an emergency meeting to discuss the issue. The EU's head of foreign policy Josep Borrell condemned the attack, saying he has "no evidence who was responsible", but that "we can imagine who is behind it".

Borrell added: "We are going to mobilise all our resources to help Ukraine to tackle this. Sadly, we knew it could happen."

The cyber attack comes amid mounting concerns about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Russia mobilising 100,000 troops and conducting tank exercises with live ammunition on the country's eastern border.

A high-level meeting between Nato, US and Russian envoys in Vienna seems to be going nowhere, according to the Russian side.

Hacker groups with suspected link to Russian intelligence agencies have carried out multiple attacks on Ukraine in the past, including an attack on the country's electricity grid in 2015, which left 200,000 people without power. A similar attack occurred a year later.

Ukraine was also among the first countries hit by NotPetya ransomware in 2017, which was also attributed to Russia.

The country says it suffered 288,000 cyberattacks in the first 10 months of 2021and 397,000 in 2020.