Most Powerful In History: Russian Providers Cannot Recover From Defence Intelligence Cyberattack

250 thousand subscribers remain without communication.

A large-scale cyberattack carried out by specialists from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine at the end of May left at least 250 thousand subscribers in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, primarily in the temporarily occupied Crimea, without communication.

A source in the special service told unian.net that representatives of Russian providers call it the most powerful DDoS attack they have ever encountered.

“In an interview, CEO of one of the Russian telecom operators Ivan Zima said that it took providers at least 16 hours to at least partially restore communication. In fact, a significant number of subscribers remained without communication for more than two days. The attack affected both the subscriber networks and the networks of the operators who used the affected infrastructure. As the representatives of the providers themselves note, during the restoration of communication, they experienced difficulties in communicating with subscribers. Fearing traditional Russian fraud, subscribers refused to provide operators with their current contact information, and 20% of subscribers refused to upgrade their network equipment, which could protect them from further attacks in the future,” the agency's source said.

At the same time, according to the source, providers had to attract hundreds of additional technical specialists, in particular to process numerous requests from dissatisfied customers.

One of the most affected providers was the telecom operator Miranda-Media. Subscribers of this provider not only did not have access to communication, but also could not pay for services due to the defeat of the billing system.

“Users of Miranda-Media (which operates under the Mirtelecom brand in the occupied territories) could not access the network in the Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. In addition, the networks of the Russian provider Farline suffered significant damage, primarily in Crimea,” a source in the Defence Intelligence informed UNIAN.

Similar attacks continued in June. In particular, recently in the temporarily occupied Crimea, a number of the largest Internet providers were subjected to a massive cyberattack. A number of large service providers were hit at once.

The defeat of Russian servers, online services and network infrastructure has been occurring systematically lately. For example, in early June, the Defence Intelligence cyber specialists carried out a massive attack on the websites of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Russian Federation and other facilities. And on June 12, on the so-called Russia Day, they attacked the online platforms of Russian airports, which led to flight delays.

Recently, as a result of massive cyberattacks on the communications infrastructure in occupied Crimea, traffic on the Kerch Bridge was stopped. A massive DDoS attack was also carried out on the website of the propaganda channel “Kerch FM” and the servers of the mobile operator “Miranda-media”.

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