Mykolaiv-based news website MykVisti has been targeted in a cyber-attack, director Oleh Dereniuha reported in a Facebook post and in a comment to the Institute of Mass Information.
He said the website might be unstable or slower than usual because of the attack.
“The MykVisti website may be unstable or slower than usual now. We are recording atypical technical activity on the resource, which prompts suspicion of a digital attack, and it’s affecting the page loading speed and makes certain sections unavailable,” Oleh Dereniuha said.
He added that the team was working with the technicians to stabilise the website and identify the reasons of the suspicious activity.
“Editorial content has been saved, nothing suggests that access has been lost or data compromised. The team continues to work,” Oleh Dereniuha wrote.
In a comment to IMI, Dereniuha added that as of the morning of 20 March, there was no suspicious activity on the website, but the technicians were taking action to boost protection.
“As of now, the MykVisti website has stabilised: the technical team continues to monitor previously recorded atypical activity such as attempts to scan and access individual services, that were blocked by safeguard mechanisms. No signs of interference with internal systems, server infrastructure overload, database failures, or loss of editorial materials have been recorded, the resource is working as usual, and additional action is being taken to strengthen protection,” said Oleh Dereniuha.
He added that the suspicious activity could not be linked to any specific country yet, since the attacks were carried out via distributed bot networks from IP addresses in different parts of the world.
Ukrainian media have been targeted in repeated cyber-attacks recently. For instance, the news outlet Novyny Donbasu sustained an intense cyberattack by Russian hackers, with the website temporarily going down as a result.
Earlier, MykVisti journalist Yulia Boychenko received a message that appeared to be an event invitation and contained a phishing link disguised as a registration form.
Russia committed 896 crimes against journalists and the media in Ukraine in the four years of the full-scale invasion. Of these, 110 were cybercrimes.