Developments in Ukraine are putting concerns of serious cyberattacks in the spotlight of IT security professionals and businesses around the world. Mandiant shares first insights into recent DDoS attacks. A commentary by John Hultquist, VP, Intelligence Analysis at Mandiant.
“It seems that DDOS attacks are being carried out against Ukrainian government and financial sector websites. There are indications that other financial systems, such as point-of-sale terminals, could be affected by disruptions. In another related incident, Ukraine Cyber Police have stated that Ukrainian citizens have received fraudulent SMS messages claiming that ATMs are not working. Although we anticipated disruptive Russian attacks on Ukraine, we have not found any evidence of Russia's responsibility so far. Denial of service attacks are also notoriously difficult to trace.”
DDoS attacks are difficult to trace
Sandra Joyce, EVP, Head of Mandiant Intelligence, also shares her professional assessment of the situation in Ukraine in a new blog post. Here are some key points from the article.
- The fears are well-founded and justified – Russia has a history of aggressively demonstrating its considerable cyber capabilities in Ukraine and abroad.
- This is not only a problem of Ukraine - We believe that Russia is emboldened after its attacks on the US and French elections, Western media, the Olympic Games and many other targets that have had few consequences for the perpetrators feels ready to deploy its aggressive cyber capabilities across the West.
- We warn our customers to prepare themselves and their operations, but we are confident that we will survive these cyber attacks. We should prepare ourselves, but not panic, because our own perception is also the target of the attackers.
More about this in the English-language blog post online.
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