Ukrainian officials say some of their national security and financial sites are now under attack by hackers, as Russian troops and military equipment remain massed around Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry tweeted that its website has likely been hit by a denial-of-service attack, noting that “an excessive number of requests per second was recorded.” The ministry said that it’s working on restoring the website.
Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security confirmed reports of the cyber attacks, stating, “For the last few hours, Privatbank has been under a massive DDoS attack.” Users reported that they were having problems with payments, as well as with the app. Some had trouble logging in, while others could not access their balance or recent transactions, according to the center.
Privatbank said that depositors’ funds face “no threat” — it’s just the app that is affected, and financial transactions “are perform[ing] normally.” Oschadbank’s internet banking is down.
The center theorized, “It is possible that the aggressor resorted to the tactics of petty mischief, because by and large, his aggressive plans do not work.” However, it did not blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attacks.
The last significant cyberattack on Ukraine took place in January, and Ukraine’s ambassador told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that an invasion by Moscow was likely to be preceded by hacking.
“If Russia decides on a full invasion, then we know that we should expect increased cyberattacks before that,” Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova told CBS News.
—This is a developing story. Tucker Reals, Olivia Gazis and Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.
