Threat Management, Threat Management

Ukraine rules December power outage cyberattack

Researchers investigating a power outage which hit the Ukraine capital, Kiev, last month ruled the incident a cyberattack.

The incident took place almost exactly one year after a much larger cyberattack on a regional electricity distribution company that was later blamed on Russian security services, according to the BBC.

Officials said both attacks appear to be connected along with a series of cyberassaults on other state institutions including the national railway system, several government ministries and a national pension fund.

"The attacks in 2016 and 2015 were not much different - the only distinction was that the attacks of 2016 became more complex and were much better organized,” Oleksii Yasnskiy, head of ISSP labs told the publication.  

Yasnskiy added the attacker had consisted of different criminal groups working together who seemed to be testing different techniques that could be used for sabotage elsewhere in the world.

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