A cyberattack seems to have briefly shut down internet access for many users across Ukraine.
The country’s cyber authority is already pointing fingers at Russia for orchestrating the disruption against Ukrtelecom, Ukraine’s main telecommunication provider.
“Today, the enemy launched a powerful cyberattack against Urktelecom’s IT-infrastructure,” the country’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) tweeted on Monday.
The disruption was so massive it caused total network connectivity at Ukrtelecom to plummet from around 80% to 13%, according to internet access monitoring site NetBlocks. “The incident has progressively intensified over the course of the day, causing an increasing number of subscribers to fall offline,” the group said in its report.
In response to user complaints, Ukrtelecom also confirmed on its Facebook page that it suffered a “powerful cyber attack." NetBlocks went on to add the disruption is the most severe internet outage Ukraine has experienced since Russia’s invasion of the country began.
Whether the disruption was caused by a DDoS attack or from a hacker breaking into Ukrtelecom’s infrastructure remains unclear. But Ukraine’s cyber authority said the attack has been “neutralized,” although the company is still working to restore network connectivity.
“In order to preserve its network infrastructure and to continue providing services to Ukraine’s Armed Forces and other military formations as well as to the customers, Ukrtelecom has temporarily limited providing its services to the majority of private users and business-clients,” the SSSCIP added.
The incident occurs a month after a cyberattack hit satellite internet provider Viasat, which took down access for users in Ukraine right as the Kremlin began to invade the country. Reportedly, the US has now concluded the Russian government was behind the Viasat attack, although the White House has yet to assign blame publicly.
Since then, Ukraine has suffered sporadic network outages, often due to bombardments from the Russian military destroying local telecommunication networks and electricity supplies. At the same time, malware capable of wiping Windows systems has been spotted trying to infect numerous computers and servers belonging to Ukrainian companies.