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- Dec 13 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s biggest mobile network operator Kyivstar aims to restart some of its services later on Wednesday after a “unprecedented” cyber attack, the company’s CEO Oleksandr Komarov said.
- Tuesday’s attack on Kyivstar, which has 24.3 million mobile subscribers and more than 1.1 million home internet users, knocked out services, damaged IT infrastructure and air raid alert systems in some of the regions. It looked to be the largest attack since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
- Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency told Reuters it was investigating the chance Russian security services were behind the attack.
- Moscow had no immediate response.
- Russian hacktivist group Killnet on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack via a statement on the Telegram messaging app, but did not provide proof
- Ukraine’s SBU also said on Wednesday that one of the Russian groups claimed credit, saying it was a hacking unit of Russia’s military intelligence service GRU.
- Activist hacking groups routinely make difficult-to-prove claims about big digital disruptions. Reuters could not quickly verify the authenticity of the claims.
- Reporting by Yuliia Dysa, Alexander Marrow and James Pearson; edits by Barbara Lewis.
- On Wednesday, a group called Solntsepyok, which translates as ‘Sun Blaze’, also claimed responsibility, sharing screenshots that appeared to show they had access to Kyivstar’s servers.
