Ukraine hit by unprecedented cyberattacks: Minister

Kiev, Feb 17: The cyberattacks that hit Ukraine's government websites and banks on Tuesday were the largest in the country's history, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said on Wednesday. "All the authorities responsible for cybersecurity worked to counter these attacks and eliminate them," Fedorov was quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency as saying.

The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which cost an estimated "millions of US dollars," were prepared beforehand and were aimed at destabilising the situation and sowing panic in Ukraine, the minister said. Currently, the DDoS attack on the Ukrainian government websites has not yet stopped, but it is under control, Fedorov said.

On Tuesday, the cyberattacks struck the website of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and two government-owned banks, Privatbank and Oshchadbank, Xinhua news agency reported.