Ukraine puts its cyber forces in combat mode
Russia orchestrated a powerful DDoS attack on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry website at the same time as its border guards were attacking and capturing the Ukrainian boats in the Kerch Strait, said Major General Volodymyr Rapko, head of the Ukrainian General Staff’s Main Directorate for Communications and Information Systems, at a press conference on Monday, December 17.
“In the entire state cybersecurity system, the Armed Forces of Ukraine hold one of the leading places. The relevant divisions have established complete compatibility and collaboration with the cybersecurity providers in Ukraine. This collaboration has only deepened following the declaration of martial law in 10 provinces of Ukraine. The divisions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces responsible for cybersecurity have transitioned to operating in combat mode,” Rapko observed.
According to him, the cybersecurity divisions’ primary area of activity is to protect the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ information and telecommunications systems from external and internal threats.
Rapko also added that since 2014 there has been a sharp climb in the number of cyberattacks, on various levels of complexity, aimed at disrupting the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ control and communication systems. However, the cybersecurity divisions have developed clear algorithms to react to various types of cyber threats and attacks, which are generally DdoS attacks on the systems, or the propagation of malware.
For example, one of the cybersecurity devices picked up an attack on the Ukrainian Defense Ministry website with more than 6,000 requests per second. “According to its geography, the attack was coming from Russia, but they can also use platforms of countries allied to us to carry out cyberattacks, which makes the ultimate identification harder,” the general noted.
Earlier, the SBU reported that it had uncovered commercial structures which had databases with vast quantities of information on state institutions, military divisions, and companies in the Lviv province.