Ukrainian telecom company’s internet service disrupted by ‘powerful’ cyberattack

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words “Cyber Attack”, binary codes, and Russian and Ukrainian flags, in this illustration taken February 15, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

By Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter

(Reuters) – Ukraine’s state-owned telecommunications company Ukrtelecom experienced a disruption in internet service on Monday after a “powerful” cyberattack, according to Ukrainian government officials and company representatives.

The incident is the latest hacking attack against Ukrainian internet services since Russian military forces invaded in late February.

“Today, the enemy launched a powerful cyberattack against Ukrtelecom’s IT-infrastructure,” said Yurii Shchyhol, chairman of the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine. “The attack was repelled. And now Ukrtelecom has an ability to begin restoring its services to the clients.”

“Currently, the attack is repulsed, the provision of services is gradually resumed,” said Ukrtelecom spokesperson Mikhail Shuranov.

NetBlocks, which monitors internet service disruptions, posted on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) earlier on Monday that it saw “connectivity collapsing” with an “ongoing and intensifying nation-scale disruption.”

A similar incident took place earlier this month with Triolan, a smaller Ukrainian telecom company, Forbes previously reported. That company suffered a hack that reset some internal systems, resulting in some local subscribers losing access.

Ukrtelecom had said in a statement earlier in the day that there had been “temporary difficulties with the installation of new Internet sessions for Ukrtelecom customers.”

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour. Kyiv and the West consider this a pretext for an unprovoked invasion to try to topple the elected Ukrainian government.