Perhaps the expected “imminent” Russian invasion narrative the White House has been pushing will come merely in the form of a cyber-attack?
There are current unconfirmed reports that Ukraine government websites may be experiencing a hack or cybersecurity threat. According to Russia’s TASS news agency, “Ukraine’s cybersecurity center says websites of the Defense Ministry, Privatbank and Oshadbank are under DDOS attack”.
Ukrainian media reports that there are issues with some Ukrainian banks (Privat and Oschad) – apps don’t work, people can’t pay with their cards, etc.
At the same time, it seems impossible to open the website of Ukraine’s Defence Ministry.
— Anastasiia Lapatina (@lapatina_) February 15, 2022
Others attempting to log onto Ukraine’s defense ministry website have said they received a notification saying, “The site is under maintenance”.
Regional pundits are reporting that “Ukraine state-controlled Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security confirms DdoS attack against a Ukrainian bank, as well as the websites of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces.” Some local sources are calling it a “significant” attack.
The global outage monitoring site NeBlocks is confirming large-scale outages:
https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1493631119669047299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1493631119669047299%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fpossible-cyberattack-against-ukraines-defense-ministry-banks-progress
There are further reports of the following:
- Websites of the Defence Ministry and army are down due to Ddos-attacks.
- State-owned Privatbank and Oschadbank are being attacked.
- Disruptions in ATM and banking services.
In January of this year, many Ukrainian government websites were breached in an attack Western media widely blamed on Russian state actors. “The attack took over websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cabinet of ministers and security and defense council,” reports previously detailed.
https://twitter.com/ignis_fatum/status/1493621084649934851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1493621084649934851%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fpossible-cyberattack-against-ukraines-defense-ministry-banks-progress
NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters) – The United States has not seen evidence yet of any Russian troop pullback near Ukraine, but any such action would be welcome, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday. @michellenichols
— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) February 15, 2022