Hack of Kyivstar exposes gap in IT understanding of cybersecurity, expert says
It will take time to fully restore Kyivstar’s infrastructure after the Dec. 12 hacker attack, and the restoration will be carried out in stages, cyber security expert Kostiantyn Korsun wrote in his column for NV Business on Dec. 14.
“I think voice(calls) will be restored relatively quickly, data transmission – after that, and everything else – later,” the expert said, recalling that Russia has already made attempts to leave Ukraine without communication.
“Almost the entire infrastructure can be restored, even if a missile hits a data center, as long as people are not injured.”
“The Russians tried hard to shut down all Ukrainian operators and providers in February-March 2022, but failed,” Korsun noted.
The operators managed to pull through because the Internet access industry in Ukraine is private, he added.
Read also: Kyivstar’s competitors can only absorb a 10% increase in subscribers
“The Ukrainian Internet access industry is almost entirely private and is still not regulated by the state, which is why it retains amazing resilience,” the expert said.
“And yes, nationalizing Kyivstar is a bad idea.”
Even IT professionals may not fully comprehend cyber risks, so conclusions must be drawn from the attack on Kyivstar, Korsun wrote.
“I would advise CEOs and CISOs of large companies to change the passwords to the domain controller and corporate VPN right now, patch everything that needs to be patched, and then order an infrastructure security audit,” he said.
“This is the first step. And then conduct training with staff and separate specialized training on cybersecurity for IT specialists. Because, oddly enough, quite often an IT specialist does not understand cybersecurity.”
Russian hackers from the Solntsepek group earlier claimed full responsibility for the cyberattack on mobile operator Kyivstar. Ukraine’s SBU security service responded to this information.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, suffered a large-scale outage on the morning of Dec. 12. Service problems have been reported throughout Ukraine.
The company announced a technical failure that may result in the unavailability of communication and Internet access services for part of its subscriber base.
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