Russian hackers from the Solntsepyok group claim responsibility for the attack on Kyivstar
The Russian hacker group Solntsepyok has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Ukraine's largest telecom operator, Kyivstar.
The so-called group announced this on its Telegram account.
Solntsepyok allegedly destroyed ten thousand computers, more than four thousand servers, and all cloud storage and backup systems.
"We attacked Kyivstar because the company provides communications to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as government agencies and law enforcement agencies of Ukraine," the statement said.
Earlier, Volodymyr Fitio, head of the public relations service of the Land Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that the mobile operators' failures did not affect the work of the military on the front line.
Earlier, the group's hackers attacked the local network of the Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, Gigabit-net and Znet providers, and the websites of Ukrainian media outlets Channel 24, Gordon and Suspilne.
The group may be associated with the GRU's elite Sandworm hacker unit, which spread the NotPetya virus that destroyed data from commercial and government agencies around the world.
In 2020, the United States charged six Russian Sandworm hackers with cyberattacks in Ukraine, the United States, France, and South Korea. These hackers are GRU officers Yuriy Andrienko, Sergey Detestov, Pavel Frolov, Anatoliy Kovalev, Artem Ochichenko, and Pyotr Pliskin.
It will be recalled that on December 12, Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile operator, suffered a massive hacker attack. As a result, its users were left without mobile communications and the Internet.
Kyivstar provides mobile and data services to more than 24.3 million customers and fixed-line internet to more than 1.1 million users.
The outage has caused some bank terminals and ATMs to shut down and public transport out of service. In some cities, the air raid warning system was temporarily down.
The Security Service of Ukraine is helping the operator to restore the networks. On December 13, Kyivstar plans to restore fixed-line home internet and launch mobile and internet services.
