Germany Offers Ukraine Help Investigating Cyberattacks on Government Websites

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th January, 2022) Germany has offered Ukraine the assistance of federal experts in ensuring the country's cybersecurity and investigation into recent cyberattacks, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday.

On Friday, a number of Ukrainian government websites were hacked and began displaying messages saying that the personal data of Ukrainian nationals had been leaked to the internet. The Ukrainian communications authority did not confirm the leak, but the interior ministry said it was the largest cyberattack on the government in the past four years.

"In light of the recent cyberattack, the (German-Ukrainian) cooperation on protection from cyberattacks remains the main agenda both for the current phase and for the future. In light of this major cyberattack, we once again offered experts from the Federal Office for Information Security for assistance and investigation to increase Ukraine's resilience against cyberattacks and to investigate this attack together," Baerbock said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

The Ukrainian Security Service and police have already begun an investigation and blamed the cyberattack on Russia. On Sunday, Deputy Secretary of Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Serhiy Demedyuk, alleged that the attack had been carried out by hackers with ties to the Belarusian government.

On Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with CNN that Russia had nothing to do with these attacks, mocking the Ukrainian government for "blaming everything on Russia, even their bad weather."