Ukrainian news agency attacked by suspected Russian hackers

This was reported by the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine.

On January 17, a cyberattack was launched against the Ukrinform news agency. Specialists of the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine CERT-UA, which operates under the State Special Communications Service, investigated the attack. 

They found that a Russian Telegram channel CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn posted messages in which hackers "boasted of their achievements" in attacking Ukrinform, but in fact the agency did not stop working. CERT-UA employees localized the threat. 

"According to preliminary data, in order to violate the integrity and availability of information, the CaddyWiper malware was launched centrally via group policy (GPO). Based on the characteristic features, CERT-UA assumes that the cyberattack was carried out by the UAC-0082 (Sandworm) group. It is associated with the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (GRU). Moreover, this group is among those that most often attacked Ukraine in 2022," the State Special Communications Service said.

• The Security Service has been successfully protecting Ukraine's information and digital security in times of war: since the beginning of 2022, as of December 27, more than 4,500 cyberattacks have been neutralized.

• The threats of digital attacks were also reported by Naftogaz: the cyber center of the Ukrainian Naftogaz detected and blocked more than 3 million cyber attacks in 2022.