Access was gained through a top-level account: the Rada has announced a cyberattack on state registries.

The cause of the large-scale cyberattack on the state registries of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine could be attributed to either phishing or bribery of employees who had access to these registries.

This was stated by Alexander Fediienko, the chairman of the subcommittee on cybersecurity issues, government communications, and cryptographic protection of information of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, as reported by RBK-Ukraine citing "Radio Free Europe."

According to him, the executed attack was well-prepared. It is also known that the entry was made from a high-level account.

He explained that for such an attack, the enemy could recruit an employee of the institution. A multi-level mechanism of inserting a USB drive might have been employed, allowing it to reach someone within the internal perimeter and be activated.

"There could be phishing attempts targeting the computers of all employees who might be working with a closed circuit remotely, which is generally prohibited. Therefore, it's definitely not Vasya, Petya, or anyone else. This is clearly a well-planned cybernetic attack that could have been executed with a sufficiently systematic organization," Fediienko stated.

According to his information, the databases were preserved, so the registries can be restored.

"If they have backups (data archives - ed.), which I hope is the case. I have confirmed this information from closed sources, and I believe that within a week or two, they will start to gradually recover," Fediienko emphasized.

What preceded it

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina announced that state registries were attacked. Due to the cyberattack, the operation of the Unified and State Registries under the Ministry of Justice was suspended. According to her, the attack was carried out by Russian hackers. The estimated time for the initial restoration of the registries is about two weeks.

Later, First Deputy Minister of Justice Nikolai Kucheryavenko mentioned that it would take the Ministry of Justice about two weeks for the complete restoration of the state registries.

For detailed information about the cyberattack, see the RBK-Ukraine article.