The company has indicated that it could not identify the origin. This attack could be linked to the one that has seen several Ukrainian official sites show, on Friday, a threatening message.
Le Monde with AFP
The situation is more serious than it appeared initially. Saturday, January 15, Microsoft has warned to have detected a computer attack to make computer networks belonging to the Ukrainian state. This new attack could be linked to the one that has received several government sites on Friday, but, unlike the latter, the attack detected by Microsoft aims at the heart of computer networks and not just websites.
Microsoft’s malicious software looks like a ransick, these viruses that paralyze computer systems and require ransom to unlock them. Except that it is a diversion, says the American multinational, which has been able to analyze the software: the latter aims to sabotage purely and simply computer networks.
Microsoft explains to have detected this malicious software from January 13, only in Ukraine, “on dozens of systems belonging to the government and NGOs and technological information organizations”. More disturbing, the company states that some of the victims are “government agencies fulfilling essential functions of the executive or emergency response”. Finally, the experts of the US company believe that only a small part of the victims are currently known. The concrete consequences of this attack were not known on Sunday, and Microsoft said not to be able to know who was behind this operation.
This attack could illuminate a new day that which targeted, Friday, several official sites. Indeed, Microsoft says that among the victims is a company responsible for managing “websites for customers (…), including government agencies whose sites have been recently defaced.” In other words, it is possible that it has had access to the computer network of this company that the hackers have managed to change the appearance of government sites.
Friday, the Kiev authorities had minimized the consequences of changing their websites, while presenting it as “massive” . Several sites had posted during a few hours threatening messages to Ukrainians, affirming without evidence that their personal data were in nature.
The Kremlin rejects the charges
Ukraine and the West have seen Moscow’s hand; Some consider that it could be a preliminary to a military attack on the ground. Sunday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation said in a statement having “evidence” that Russia is behind cyberattack “which targeted its websites. This sabotage “is a manifestation of the hybrid war that Russia has been against Ukraine since 2014,” said the ministry. The objective is “not only to intimidate society”, but also to “destabilize the situation in Ukraine” by “undermining the confidence [of the population] in the power”, according to the same source. The Kremlin rejected these accusations.
This cyberattack occurs while relations are stretched between Ukraine and Russia, Kiev accusing Moscow to have massed troops at its border to prepare a possible invasion.
Ukraine has been torn since 2014 by a war in the east of the country between the Kiev forces and Prorussian separatists, whose Kremlin is widely regarded as the military and financial godfather. The conflict broke out after the annexation of the Crimea Peninsula the same year by Russia.