One of Ukraine's Largest Mobile Service Providers Suffered a Massive Cyberattack

On December 12, 2023, mobile and internet services from Kyivstar service provider were reported unavailable; people began to report that Kyivstar's cable Internet was also down.

Given that many people use Kyivstar's cable Internet service, most users were left without any options to access the network. Almost 25 million users were cut off from mobile communications and the Internet.

Let's take a look at the reasons for the cyberattack on Kyivstar.

What happened?

In the morning of December 12, Kyivstar's service outage was called a technical failure, and later in the evening, it was called a massive cyberattack that damaged a significant part of the provider's IT infrastructure. During the day, the company's internal communication channels began to report a cyberattack on the network core and client databases. The company's representatives noted that "no personal data of clients was leaked."

According to confirmed reports, the attack targeted the network core, which processes all traffic passing through, including calls, messages, cellular netwзork and other types of traffic.

To record the consequences of the illegal interference with Kyivstar's network, the provider engaged special services. However, they say it is too early to draw conclusions for the cause of the cyberattack.

One of the versions for the cyberattack is the involvement of Russian special services.

What are the consequences of the cyberattack?

The cyberattack on Kyivstar not only deprived at least half of Ukraine's population of mobile communication, but also affected businesses, government agencies, the banking system, and even utilities. However, the option of "national roaming," which was introduced at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, also does not work in this case because Kyivstar cannot transfer information about its clients to other providers' networks.

Mobile service providers supply the Internet connection to the banking infrastructure. Therefore, institutions began reporting malfunctions of ATMs and payment terminals, which will resume functioning "after the Kyivstar services are fixed".

The Kyivstar outage also affected the air raid alert system. As a result, the air raid alert system is not working in some cities of Sumy and Kyiv regions.

Communication problems have affected automatic street lighting systems in Lviv and Kramatorsk; city services have to turn on street lighting lines manually.

But that's not all. Amid the news of Kyivstar's outages, scammers have become more active, offering compensation allegedly "from the provider itself".

However, despite the complex consequences of the cyberattack, unfortunately, Kyivstar's reputation suffered the most damage.

How to prevent cyberattacks?

Mobile service providers often store data within their own infrastructure for many reasons, including privacy and cost savings, and simply because it is more convenient. Most of the backup storage options are likely to be part of the technical infrastructure of the business. Therefore, if the infrastructure is compromised in any way, everything that belongs to the infrastructure shares the risk of compromised cybersecurity.

Kyivstar's example demonstrates that having backup data storage channels outside of your own infrastructure, such as on servers in other locations or data centers in the same location, is extremely important. If you run a large business, you can't "put all your eggs in one basket" - you need to have different options for protecting your data.

One such option is the new service for remote storage space for backups from HostZealot.

This service from HostZealot allows you to securely store critical user information and databases. Therefore, in the event of any failures or attacks, you will always have access to your data and can easily restore it. This method prevents your business from downtime, and critical data leakage, and protects your business reputation, which is so difficult to restore.