Valentin Petrov: The Russian secret services are behind cyber-attacks against Ukraine
The Russian secret services and international hacker groupings connected to them are behind cyber-attacks against Ukraine. This was stated by the Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the Staff of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Valentin Petrov in his interview with German TV-channel ZDF.
"The Russian secret services and international hacker groupings connected to them are behind cyber-attacks against Ukraine. Virtually, Russia tests on Ukraine new systems for knocking out the infrastructure via cyberspace ", - he informed.
The Head of Service on Issues of Information Security also noted that Ukraine has started to suffer from various kinds of cyber threats straight after the Revolution of Dignity.
Valentin Petrov gave the example of the 2014 presidential elections when on the day of the elections a powerful cyber-attack on the resources of the Central Election Commission was conducted.
"The cyber-attack was aimed at garbling the results. Following the elections, the next morning, the whole country was to find out that not acting President Petro Poroshenko but the leader of the far-right party had won. The Russian Federation's propagandistic arguments were to confirm this", - he explained and added that the staff of the Security Service of Ukraine and the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine discovered the attack in time and managed to prevent it.
Valentin Petrov also noticed that despite the rapid prevention of the cyber-attack by Ukrainian specialists, the next day Russian news on the First channel presented the information showing "the CEC website" with the results that were to be garbled as a result of the cyber-attack.
"In other words, the cyber-attack did not take place, but Russian news showed the results that had been planned. This is the case when cyber weapons, in particular, cyber-attacks are used in propaganda campaigns. It was a failure of our adversaries who clearly acknowledged their involvement in these cyber-attacks", - the Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the Staff of the NSDC of Ukraine stated.
Moreover, he emphasized that when it comes to cyber-attacks aimed at propaganda, in such a case the whole society suffers, as propaganda has mass effect.
"However, our specialists record that except the cases that became public knowledge, there are mass attacks on the banking sector - this is cybercrime, and also on the public authorities - with a view of cyber-espionage", - Valentin Petrov noted, adding that in all the cases mentioned above the relevant investigation is ongoing.
"We control the situation and block the attempts of unauthorized access to our resources quite successfully", - he underscored.
The Head of Service on Issues of Information Security is his interview also mentioned that as long as society entered the digital age, there will be more and more digital attacks accordingly.
"That is why not only Ukraine but also all countries face the task to adhere to all the laws of information hygiene and information protection, to provide the measures of protection of their systems from the very beginning", - Valentin Petrov summarized.