Russian hackers breached the network of Ukrainian telecom operator Kyivstar at least as early as May 2023, Illia Vitiuk, head of the cybersecurity department of Ukraine’s SBU security service, said in an interview with news agency Reuters on Jan. 4.

The attack resulted in “catastrophic destruction,” with “almost everything” destroyed, including thousands of virtual servers and the operator’s core, Vitiuk explained.

Read also: Kyivstar receiving support from Microsoft, Cisco, Ericsson to fix hacking attack

The focus was on gathering intelligence and inflicting a psychological damage, though no personal data was leaked, he added.

“This attack is a big message, a significant warning not only to Ukraine but for the whole Western world to understand that no one is truly untouchable,” said Vitiuk.

An SBU investigation into the hack discovered that hackers likely attempted to infiltrate Kyivstar in March 2023 or earlier, having been in the system at least since May.

Read also: Services fully restored after major cyberattack, Kyivstar president says

“I cannot say at this moment from when they had full access: probably, at least since November,” Vitiuk said.

After a significant pause, there were several attempts aimed at causing more significant harm to Kyivstar, but the SBU helped repel new cyber attacks.

The military was minimally affected as soldiers use “different algorithms and protocols” than civilian networks.

Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, experienced a massive failure on Dec. 12, 2023, causing communication and internet issues nationwide. The company initially reported a technical glitch affecting communication services and internet access for part of the subscriber base.

Read also: Kyivstar to invest in cybersecurity after major hack

The cause of the extensive outage was a hacker attack claimed by Russian hackers from the Sunflower group, a unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of Russia (GRU).

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