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THOUSANDS OF INTERNET users across Europe have been thrown offline after what sources said today was a likely cyber attack at the beginning of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.
According to Orange, a network, “nearly 9,000 subscribers” of a satellite internet service provided by its subsidiary Nordnet in France are without internet following a “cyber event” on 24 February at Viasat, a US satellite operator of which it is a client.
Eutelsat, the parent company of the bigblu satellite internet service, also confirmed to AFP on Friday that around one-third of bigblu’s 40,000 subscribers in Europe, in Germany, France, Hungary, Greece, Italy and Poland, were affected by the outage on Viasat.
In the US, Viasat said on Wednesday that a “cyber event” had caused a “partial network outage” for customers “in Ukraine and elsewhere” in Europe who rely on its KA-SAT satellite.
Viasat gave no further details, saying only that “police and state partners” had been notified and were “assisting” with investigations.
General Michel Friedling, head of France’s Space Command said there had been a cyberattack.
“For several days, shortly after the start of operations, we have had a satellite network that covers Europe and Ukraine in particular, which was the victim of a cyberattack, with tens of thousands of terminals that were rendered inoperative immediately after the attack,” he said, adding that he was talking about a civilian network — Viasat.
Military and cyber specialists fear that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict could lead to an outbreak of cyberattacks, a “cyber Armageddon” with major consequences for civilians in Ukraine and Russia, but also globally, through a spillover effect.
But a worst-case scenario has so far been avoided, as the attacks observed appear to be contained in their impact and geographical scope.
Cybersecurity companies have observed attacks in Ukraine that deploy a new data-destroying virus, the actual effects of which are not yet known.
In Russia, institutional websites were made inaccessible from abroad, to protect them from denial of service (DOS) attacks that regularly rendered them inoperable.
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I wonder who would have done this?
@Maria Mcphillips: to be fair it could have been a script kiddie from Utah for all we know
@Hugh Morris: yeah right…
@Hugh Morris: ya in theory it could have been anyone on this earth but if I was a betting man I know where I’d be putting my money
@Fandandi: You mean Putin your money don’t you
@Hugh Morris: and who made the script?
I learnt years ago if something was stolen at work or wherever it was never the most obvious person.
There’s lots of games being played at the moment.
If a group of super rich and powerful people met every year to push for specific, self enriching large scale outcomes…… Surly we’d be informed about that?
If that same group had a prophetic tendency to “simulate” disruptive events, and how they could be used to advance the group’s agendas, surely that should warrent some investigation?
If this “group” had nothing to hide, would they remove their own web pages related to these predictive “simulations”?
https://www.weforum.org/projects/cyber-polygon
If this post is bonkers, why will it be removed by AFP/Journal?
@Special_Ed: Its’ 2 hours later and it hasn’t been removed. Doesn’t mean that you’re wrong, but why would you claim that your comment would be removed? That claim is usually made by conspiracy theorists. That ‘The Truth’ is too dangerous to the ruling elite with tentacles everywhere and The Journal are part of the system.
@David A. Murray:
My posts have a 1 in 3 “removal” rate here.
Any thoughts on the psychic powers that seem to play into their agenda?
It must be those pesky kids.
@E.J. Murray: hehe theres the mystery machine on the horizon
have your say