The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has neutralized more than 4,500 cyberattacks on the country this year, an official said Monday.
Ilya Vitiuk, head of the SBU cybersecurity department said in a statement that Ukraine had “entered 2022 with eight years of hybrid warfare experience behind us,” adding that “at the time of the invasion, we were already ready for the worst scenarios.”
“And the massive cyberattacks that we repelled in January and February became additional ‘training’ before the invasion,” he said.
The scale of cyberattacks is now much wider, particularly compared to previous years, he said. In 2020, nearly 800 cyberattacks were recorded, while in 2021 it jumped to 1,400, and in 2022 the number increased more than three times.
“Today, the aggressor country launches an average of more than 10 cyberattacks per day. Fortunately, Ukrainian society does not even know about most of them,” Vitiuk said.
He added that attackers are most likely to target energy, logistics, military facilities, government databases and information resources.
“We monitor risks and threats in real-time 24/7. We know most of the hackers from the Russian special services working against us by name. We are working on documenting them,” Vitiuk said, declaring they would face hearings at a future international military tribunal.