Geo-Poli-Cyber™ Warfare – Ukraine Telecom Cyber Attack is One of “Highest-Impact” Hacks of the War. – Hackers Were Undetected Inside Telecoms Giant for Months. | Survivability News Exclusive Analysis.

The hack of Ukraine’s largest telecommunications operator, Kyivstar, was “one of the highest-impact disruptive cyberattacks on Ukrainian networks” since Russia invaded the country last year, British defense intelligence said.

The attack, which began on December 12, left Kyivstar subscribers without mobile signal and internet for two days. The company provides services to more than half of Ukraine’s population, according to the British Ministry of Defence, which published a brief on the incident over the weekend. The hackers were inside Ukraine telecoms giant undetected for months.

Not Just a Cyber Attack but an Unprecedented Geo-Poli-Cyber™ One.

The hack of Kyivstar is classified by MLi Group and Survivability News as a pure and 100% Geo-Poli-Cyber™ attack, and which is also referred to as GPCyber™. Such attacks have motivations that are political, geopolitical, warfare etc. They are not purely financially motivated.

Why Geo-Poli-Cyber™ not just Cyber attack?

Geo-Poli-Cyber™ and Poli-Cyber are labels that were created by MLi Group chairman and Survivability News Publisher Khaled Fattal in 2012. The goal was and still is to distinguish such destructive and debilitating attacks from financially motivated ones as they differ significantly in damage and destruction costs and scale and can impact national sovereignty and in the failing vs effective mitigation strategies. (Click to see the full Geo-Poli-Cyber™ definition).

Why Unprecedented?

Kyivstar’s CEO Oleksandr Komarov called the Kyivstar hack “the largest cyberattack on telecom infrastructure in the world.” According to his statement.

Khaled Fattal Challenges all top National Leaders & Coporate Decision Makers.

On this incident, Fattal said, “the Kyivstar should serve as the latest and most dire warning to top corporate and national leaders and decision makers that not even the best-in-class cyber security strategies and solutions can effectively mitigate such Geo-Poli-Cyber™ attacks and breaches. He then added, for those who are not yet implementing any of MLI’s Survivability Strategies, solutions and services, it is time you did consider them and how to better and more effectively mitigate risk comprehensively.”

Fattal asks Corporate & National Leaders & Decision Makers These Simple but Profound Questions:

“Can you afford to continue following what you know will keep failing”?

 

He subsequently issues them this challenge:

 

“You can continue following what you know will keep failing you, your nation and your citizens, or your company, customers, and shareholders,”

or

“You can request a No-Obligation private and confidential briefing with MLi to learn about GPCyber™ Warfare, Survivability, why and how”.

 

Click to submit your Expression of Interest (EOI) for a No-Obligation Confidential GPCyber™ Warfare & Survivability Private Briefing.

Some High-Level Technical Details

One cyber incident comparable in scale to the Kyivstar hack is last year’s Russian attack on the satellite company Viasat, which disabled thousands of satellite modems throughout the country and other parts of Europe and led to the malfunction of thousands of wind turbines in Germany. The Viasat hack is believed to have been carried out by Russian intelligence to degrade the communication abilities of the Ukrainian government and military.

Last week, the Russian hacker group Solntsepek, previously linked to the notorious Sandworm hackers, claimed responsibility for the Kyivstar hack, stating that they intended to disrupt communications for the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine claimed that the cyberattack did not impact the communication systems of its armed forces but did have several downstream effects. For instance, it disrupted air raid sirens, some banks, ATMs, and point-of-sale terminals.

Kyivstar resumed most of its services on December 14.

The company’s CEO Oleksandr Komarov called the Kyivstar hack “the largest cyberattack on telecom infrastructure in the world.” According to his statement, the hackers launched the attack on Kyivstar’s core network and managed to destroy some of its functions.

The hackers broke into Kyivstar systems through the compromised account of one of the company’s employees, Komarov said.

The company and the country’s security services deliberately turned off the entire network when they detected the attack.

The investigation into the incident is ongoing. Kyivstar said it has repelled around 500 cyberattacks on its systems since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.