Cyberattacks Were Launched Against Government Sites of Both Russia and Ukraine

Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Kremlin’s official website and several other major Russian government websites have gone offline. Currently, the websites to go offline include Kremlin (kremlin.ru), the official website of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the Russian Parliament’s official website (aka the Duma). Although it is unclear whether these websites were taken down as a result of a cyberattack or a technical error. 

This comes just one day after a suspected hack took out a number of Ukrainian government websites. Ukraine is on the radar of cybercriminals, according to two cybersecurity organisations with a strong presence in the country, ESET and Symantec Threat Intelligence, which have revealed that the country’s computer networks are being targeted with devastating data-wiper malware. 

According to an ESET assessment, the new data wiper malware has targeted hundreds of computer systems in Ukraine. In one example, it infiltrated the victim’s device’s Microsoft Active Directory server. The virus appears to have been created five hours before it was released into the world, implying that its code and operational infrastructure were likely already set up and ready to go. 

According to ESET’s analysis, the malware employed in the attack was HermeticaWiper, which is typically distributed via Windows group policies. This suggests that attackers may have gained complete control of their target’s internal networks. According to the organisation, the

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