Reuters
1/25/19
Hackers likely controlled by Russia are stepping up efforts to disrupt Ukraine’s presidential election in March with cyber attacks on electoral servers and personal computers of election staff, the head of Ukraine’s cyber police said on Friday. Serhiy Demedyuk told Reuters the attackers were using virus-infected greeting cards, shopping invitations, offers for software updates and other malicious “phishing” material intended to steal passwords and personal information. “There are constant attacks - they go from simple (software) to applications that one or another employee uses,” he said, adding they were reminiscent of cyber attacks on the country’s energy, transport and banking systems seen since 2014. “Payment occurs in cryptocurrency in most cases ... and from the same wallets that were used to finance the previous attacks. This indicates that the same hacker organizations that are under the control of Russian special agencies are engaged in this,” Demedyuk said. In one of the attacks the “NotPetya” malware in 2017 hit thousands of computers not only in Ukraine but also around the world, disrupting shipping and businesses.
Pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko, likely to stand in the elections, said this month that the Kremlin had developed a huge arsenal of methods for interference in the elections. “This is not just our take. The Russian meddling to influence Ukraine’s elections is well under way,” Petro Poroshenko told foreign diplomats. According to the cyber police, no infiltration into the electoral system has been recorded yet, but they expect even larger attacks a month before the elections when the commission’s regional offices will start working. The hackers buying personal details of election officials were concentrating on civil servants and employees who keep the commission’s equipment running, he said. The cyber police worry that critical infrastructure in sectors such as energy and banking may again become the object of cyber attacks during or before the elections using malware to create so-called ‘back doors’ for a large coordinated attack.
