Massive Cyber Attack Takes Out Crimean Internet

Crimean authorities have complained that their entire internet infrastructure was attacked on Friday, causing outages on the peninsula, with multiple Internet providers affected at once.

We often hear about cyberattacks, ransomware and DDoS attacks originating from Russia, but not the other way around. This time, the reported attack on the Crimean internet was so extensive that even the authorities had to acknowledge it, in a message from Oleg Kryuchkov, the spokesperson of the Russian-appointed head of the Republic, Sergei Aksyonov.

One of the Russia-affiliated groups, Killnet, launched countless DDoS attacks throughout Europe and the United States, mostly targeting airports, governmental websites, and companies. For the most part, the effects were not even noticeable. Some online services became unavailable for a few hours; the group boasted of the attacks on Telegram, which was the end of that.

The Crimean attack was far more extensive, and the effects were felt across the entire infrastructure, not just one specific online resource. Also, no one took responsibility, although it happened just hours after the Ukraine missile attack on the Russian Black Sea Navy headquarters in Crimea.

“An unprecedented cyber attack on Crimean Internet providers. We are detecting interruptions in the Internet on the peninsula. All services are working to eliminate the threat. We apologize for the temporary difficulties,” =Kryuchkov said on Telegram.

The fact that the entire Internet infrastructure was hit in one swoop shows that it’s highly vulnerable and will likely be affected in the future in the same manner.