Yesterday morning at about half past seven, the entire national network of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, went down. Not only is the mobile network unavailable, but also fixed Internet access – “Home Internet”. All services, including the company’s portal, are down.
Causes and consequences
Preliminary, the failure was caused by a hacker attack on the company’s core. Kyivstar users will also be unable to switch to other operators’ networks, as Kyivstar is unable to transfer information about its subscribers due to the failure.
Kyivstar is also out of service due to the failure:
- some security systems;
- there were problems with fares and hotlines;
- many shops and establishments cannot accept cashless payments due to problems with terminals.
The company said that they were working on fixing the problem. However, three hours later, nothing is working. It’s strange that there is no backup at least for the company’s website, which should be hosted on an additional server somewhere in a European data center.
The cyberattack and fixing the network
The cyberattack began on December 12 at 5:26 am. But it was only at 6:30 a.m. that they realized it was a large-scale hacker attack. At that moment, a cascading downfall of a large number of IT infrastructure elements began.
After that, Kyivstar’s network and all services were down for 30 hours already.
Microsoft, Cisco, and Ericsson are helping the Ukrainian operator Kyivstar to resume operations after a large-scale cyberattack. The company’s CEO Oleksandr Komarov told about it.
In addition, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Special Communications Service, and CERT-UA are helping to investigate the cyberattack and restore the operator’s cybersecurity.
Comments and answers
Here’s what users wrote in the comments to the post on Facebook. We are also publishing responses from the company’s representative.
Mykhailo Kravchyk: “I understand the war, it’s hard for everyone… But Kyivstar has been degrading for a long time, maybe because the occupying oligarchs are the owners? This is not good for the security of the state. From my personal experience, since June Kyivstar has not been solving the problem it created with its corporate number. They are talking about nationalization – maybe it will help, or we need to change the operator.”
Kyivstar: “Kyivstar is a Ukrainian company established and registered in Ukraine. Kyivstar’s shareholders are VEON LTD, an EU-based company with its headquarters in the Netherlands. The company is listed on the NASDAQ and EURONEXT stock exchanges and is subject to the laws of the EU and the Netherlands. VEON’s investors include thousands of private shareholders in the United States, Europe and around the world. VEON does not have and has never had a controlling or majority shareholder.”
Andrii Miroshnychenko: “Until 2017, VEON Group was called Vimpelcom, and Russian VimpelCom generated more than 50% of its revenues.”
Valeriia Bulavchyk: “The main thing is that tariffs are regularly reviewed. Kyivstar never tires of disappointing.”
Alla Krasiuk: “Kyiv region is out of touch…”
Tetiana Nedviga: “Why Kyiv? The whole country has no connection!”
Ludmylka Ludmylka: “Everyone who has Kyivstar has no connection and no Internet!”
Olena Yurchuk: “We are waiting for recovery”
Butenko Yulia: “Galia was so angry with her husband that she called him on the TV remote control!)”
Maria Holubieva: “Kyivstar, hold on”.
