Suspected Russian-hit Ukrainian state registers recovered

Operations of all Ukrainian state registers were confirmed by the country’s Ministry of Justice to have resumed following a major cyberattack late last month by suspected Russian hackers, which resulted in the disruption of electronic birth, marriage, and death registrations, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Additional details regarding the incident, which attackers claimed to have involved an attack against register operator National Information Systems, were not provided but Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishyna noted the removal of NIS as a Justice Ministry vendor while emphasizing the security of citizens’ data. “We learned important lessons from this cyberattack and are already implementing systemic changes,” said Stefanishyna, who added that the development of legislation mandating the creation of a cyber professional network among government entities managing sensitive information has already commenced. Such a development comes after Russia and Slovakia had their respective land registries targeted by still-unknown threat actors.