Main Highlights: November 14-27

Executive summary

Volodymyr Zelenskyy took part in the «Digital Transformation» panel within the framework of the G20 summit, where he shared the Ukrainian experience of cyber warfare:

«We have created an IT army that wins in cyberspace. The best specialists and companies of the country have united to protect the state. We repelled more than 1,300 cyberattacks during the eight months of the russian war. In the first week of the invasion, russia destroyed a key data center of our country, and the response solution is the «clouds» into which we moved part of the information systems. We have built the protection of public registers. We have preserved the digital resilience of banks. Thanks to digitalization, we can quickly organize social payments to those affected by hostilities. Millions of Ukrainians use our state service «Diya» every day. These are more than 100 types of public services without contact with officials. A digital passport, opening accounts, paying fines and taxes, receiving state aid, collecting funds to support the army… All this is Ukrainian «Diya». If you or your allies and partners do not already have such a system and such digital protection, we will be happy to help you build them!». ¹

During 9 months of full-scale war, Ukrainians showed how modern solutions and technologies can change the course of events. During the Kyiv International Economic Forum, the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, spoke about priority areas during the war. This is the digitalization of public services, the restoration of communications, military-tech and, of course, cyber security, because thanks to powerful cyber resistance, there was no information leak during the entire time of the full-scale invasion and all systems work stably. ²

Deputy Minister of Energy for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization Farid Safarov said that over 1.2 million cyber attacks were carried out on energy infrastructure facilities during the 9 months of the war, and thanks to the high level of cyber protection, the Ukrainian energy sector of the russian federation failed to achieve its goals. The deputy minister emphasized that Ukraine is gaining new unique experience in countering cyber threats every day, and after winning the war with russia, it will be ready to reveal all the details regarding the tools of the aggressor’s hacking. ³

Ukraine in Cyberspace

State Service of Special Communications continues active cooperation with NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Center Of Excellence (CCDCOE). ⁴
Specialists of Favbet Tech and other IT companies as part of the cyber army created by the Ministry of Digital Transformation help the Armed Forces of Ukraine fight against the russian invaders. ⁵
Deputy Chairman of the State Service of Special Communications Viktor Zhora took part in the Ukrainian technological conference Forbes Tech, where he became a guest of the discussion «HardTalk – Cyber Threats: the Scale of the Challenge». The key topics of the conversation were cooperation between the state and business in strengthening Ukraine’s cyber resilience and international work in building a unified protected cyberspace of the civilized world. ⁶
The International Security Forum is held in Halifax, Canada – an annual world conference on security issues, in which government officials, representatives of the parliaments of democratic countries of the world, specialists, experts in international relations, security and defense participate. The focus of this year’s event is the situation in Ukraine, the resistance to the russian military invasion, which has had consequences not only for Ukrainians, but also for the whole world. ⁷
In Kharkiv, the SSU detained a hacker who interfered with the video surveillance system of a state body, and also published an online broadcast of the city panorama on the network. ⁸
The SSU blocked a large-scale online casino that «transferred» almost UAH 3 billion to the russian f ⁹

russia in Cyberspace

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metzola, said that the EP website was subjected to a cyber attack by pro-kremlin hackers after the European institution recognized russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. ¹⁰
Deputy of the State Duma of the russian federation, Dmytro Gusev, took the initiative to create the «People’s Cyber Front». He proposes to collect all russian hacker groups, legitimize and organize their work against «unfriendly countries». ¹¹
The Ministry of Digital Affairs of the russian federation is going to oblige developers of domestic software to combine products with domestic processors. The corresponding draft of the resolution is published on the portal of projects of normative acts. ¹²
The head of the Central Bank of the russian federation, Elvira Nabiullina, admitted that the number of cyberattacks on russian banks is multiplying, that is why the cyberscientists are. ¹³
The US imposes sanctions against the layer companies that supply sanctioned chips to r These restrictions can completely isolate russia from foreign powers. ¹⁴

Cyber attacks on Ukraine

Dos/DDos:

Mykolaiv online publication «NykVesty» suffered a DDoS attack. ¹⁵

Cryptocarding:

With the help of hackers, the group of russian neo-nazis «rusych» steals money from crypto-wallets, in particular – from the charity fund «Happy New Life»: money donated for the needs of the Armed Forces and Ukrainians is directed to support the russian army. ¹⁶

Cyber attacks on russia

Deface:

The IT Army of Ukraine left a message of congratulations on the Day of Dignity and Freedom to Ukrainians on more than 60 resources of russian ministries, services and departments. ¹⁷^{, 18}^{, 19}

After the conference on artificial intelligence in russia, their AI, with the assistance of the IT army of Ukraine, published on the website of the national center for the development of artificial intelligence the steps that russia needs to take in order to save itself. ²⁰

Ukrainian hackers uploaded an original greeting on russian television to the «Day of Missile Troops and Artillery of the russian federation», where they showed the number of russian equipment destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. ²¹

Data breach:

Pro-Ukrainian hackers made public a part of the database of users who are probably clients of the provider «Dom.ru» from St. Petersburg. In general, the database contains information about 4 million clients of the provider. ²²
One of the Belarusian hacker groups announced that it had hacked the website of the Main Radio Frequency Center, which performs control and supervisory and regulatory functions. As a result of the attack, the internal network of the Main Radio Frequency Center was hacked, documents, correspondence and mail of employees, their tracking systems, encrypted workstations, and an affected domain controller were downloaded. ²³

Dos/DDos:

ІТ Army of Ukraine attacked:

Alfa-Bank; ²⁴^{, 25}^{, 26}
«CHIP and DIP», a store of radio-electronic parts, which is in demand among the military of the russian federation; ²⁷
1С; ²⁸^{, 29}
RTS tender; ²⁹^{, 30}
³⁰