Millions of people were unable to access internet and mobile services on Tuesday after the worst cyberattack targeted Kyivstar, the largest mobile network provider in Ukraine.
More than half of Ukraine’s population, or 24.3 million mobile users, and over 1.1 million home internet users are served by Kyivstar.
The CEO Oleksandr Komarov stated that the company’s IT infrastructure had been “partially destroyed” and that the attack was “a result of” the war with Russia, without specifying which Russian agency he thought was at fault.
“War is also happening in cyber-space. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war,” he told a national television broadcast.
“(The attack) significantly damaged (our) infrastructure, limited access, we could not counter it at the virtual level, so we shut down Kyivstar physically to limit the enemy’s access,” Komarov said.
He also mentioned that two databases that held client information were now locked due to damage.
In a Facebook statement, the business—which is owned by the mobile telecoms operator Veon, based in Amsterdam—stated that it was assisting law enforcement and working to restore the outage.
