The United States and the United Kingdom on Friday accused Russia of responsibility for this week’s cyber attacks against Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and major banking institutions in that country.
The House of Representatives’ top cybersecurity official said this week’s attacks had “limited impact” as Ukrainian authorities were able to quickly restore networks “online,” but it was possible that the Russians were paving the way for more devastating hacks.
Ukrainian authorities described Tuesday’s cyber attacks as the worst in the country’s history.
While disrupting online banking, the attacks impeded some government communications and were provoked to create a panic, according to the lead architect of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at cybersecurity firm Netscout, Roland Dobbins.
“Most DDoS attacks succeed due to a lack of preparation on the part of the attackers,” Dobbins said, adding that most commercial security services designed to counter the attack will likely be able to fend off Tuesday’s attacks.
For its part, the United Kingdom blamed Russia tonight for the cyber attacks targeting the Ukrainian financial sector, in which Moscow has denied any involvement.
“The British government believes that the Russian military intelligence (GRU) was involved in this week’s ‘computer’ attacks… against the financial sector in Ukraine,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement.
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