Recorded Future, the world’s largest private intelligence and analytical company, will continue to support Ukraine in 2024 by allocating more than $23 million for Ukraine’s cybersecurity, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said on Monday.
“Recorded Future tools help detect and eliminate cyberattacks at an early stage. These tools are used by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the State Special Communications Service, the GUR, the SBU, the Ministry of Defense, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Cyber Police,” Fedorov wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to him, the company also works with key enterprises in the energy and telecom sectors.
As reported, Recorded Future provided intelligence to protect Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, assisted in the investigation of Russian war crimes, and opened access to the Intelligence Cloud software platform.
In total, in 2023, the company invested more than $20 million in assistance to Ukraine.
As part of the Ukrainian-African renaissance, Ukraine seeks to develop relations of mutual respect and benefit with African countries, in particular offering a number of beneficial areas of cooperation for Nigeria’s new leadership, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in an interview with the Nigerian edition of The Guardian Nigeria.
“In May, I became the first Ukrainian foreign minister to attend the presidential inauguration ceremony in an African country. It was Nigeria. This fact shows Ukraine’s commitment to developing relations with Nigeria’s new leadership. This way we show other African countries that Ukraine seeks to develop partnership based on mutual respect and shared benefits,” he said, according to the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
According to Kuleba, Ukraine has made steps towards each other in the spirit of mutual respect and now counts on reciprocal steps of the new leadership of Nigeria to develop mutually beneficial relations.
“We propose to increase the volume of trade and consider the possibility of attracting Ukrainian construction companies to projects in Nigeria. Ukraine also has a lot of experience in digitalization. Our “State on Smartphone” program allows citizens to do almost everything online, receive public services. We are ready to share this experience with you. Another promising area of cooperation is cybersecurity. Nigeria is one of the countries that suffer from the highest number of cyber attacks. We know how to counter them effectively,” he said.
Kuleba also stressed that the Peace Formula proposed by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is the only real way to restore a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine.
“Imagine if Nigeria, God forbid, experienced aggression – would you agree to give up part of your territory, allow someone to occupy it and torture your people? You wouldn’t agree to that. Being at the inauguration of your president, I saw your army. I am convinced that your warriors would have fought resolutely for your land. That is what we are doing today. We did not start this war. The hostilities are taking place on our territory, but we know what we are fighting for: the freedom and security of our citizens. And that motivates us to fight against the invaders,” the minister said.
Kyivstar and lifecell have launched new security solutions for their customers: “Kyivstar, in cooperation with Fortinet, a network security company specializing in devices, announced new cyber security solutions, while lifecell announced access to the DefensX browser with enhanced cybersecurity and credential protection to protect Internet users from online threats.
According to Kyivstar’s release, Fortinet solutions will be available in different versions: from physical hardware to specialized virtual machines. In particular, they will be available on a subscription basis.
It is also claimed that customized services to counter cyber threats can be offered, taking into account the needs of companies, with support at all stages of implementation and use.
“The peculiarity of the DefensX browser is that all web pages accessed by the user are opened in the cloud, i.e. remotely from the device traffic and the user’s endpoint, which ensures reliable blocking of malicious code fragments and potential threats,” lifecell explained the essence of its offer.
The company added that the browser’s features also include the ability to block ads and phishing warnings.
DefensX was developed by lifecell’s partner Secure Industries, Inc. The product was available as part of a comprehensive corporate solution for the partner’s B2B customers.
As reported, during the year of full-scale war, Kyivstar’s cybersecurity department successfully blocked more than 450 DDoS attacks on the network and more than 13 thousand phishing attacks.
Earlier, in 2021, Kyivstar business customers already have access to the AntiDDoS service to protect against DDoS attacks (a solution based on FortiDDoS from Fortinet).
The number of cyber incidents at the beginning of 2022 grew seven times compared to the same period last year, the CERT-UA government cybersecurity team said in a statement.
According to the data published on the CERT-UA website, since the beginning of 2022, 5,970 cyber incidents have been recorded and processed, of which 5,534 have been processed automatically.
Automatic processing includes informing providers about infected hosts of their clients and blocking phishing pages hosted in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the year, 613 cyber incidents were classified as malware, and another 4,921 cases were phishing.
By sectors worked out by the CERT-UA team since the beginning of the year, 252 out of 436 incidents were registered in the UAGOV zone, 78 in the UACOM zone, and 62 in the FCOM zone.
According to the targets of the attack, 94 cyber incidents related to the sector of government bodies and local authorities, 68 to the security and defense sector, 25 to the financial sector. Telecom providers, commercial organizations, energy and transport sectors were also attacked.
At the same time, 170 cyber incidents were classified as low, 81 as medium, 72 as high, and 113 as critical.
The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine is in contact with international partners on countering cyberattacks and strengthening the cybersecurity system, measures are being taken to protect the websites of the Foreign Ministry and consulates abroad, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oleh Nikolenko said.
On behalf of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian diplomatic service has begun additional contacts with international partners to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to counter cyberattacks and develop cyber defense systems.
“A team of specialists from the Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with other involved departments, has already resumed the operation of the website of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine: mfa.gov.ua,” Nikolenko wrote on his Facebook page.
He noted that as a result of the hacker attack, the content of the website was not damaged, no official information was leaked, and the internal IT systems of the Foreign Ministry are operating as normal.
“We are taking practical measures to strengthen the cyber defense of the Foreign Ministry and Ukrainian embassies and consulates abroad,” Nikolenko added.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has adopted the provision on the organizational and technical model of cybersecurity developed by the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, according to the service’s website. The organizational and technical model of cybersecurity is a set of measures, subjects and actions aimed at developing the capabilities of the national cybersecurity system in prompt response to cyberattacks and cyber incidents. This model creates conditions for minimizing possible negative consequences for information and communication systems.
“The organizational and technical model of cybersecurity not only denotes complex framework and different levels of infrastructure for protecting the country in cyberspace, but also at the sub-legal level defines the main stages of responding to cyber incidents. Both government agencies and the corporate sector and citizens will be involved in the development of this model,” Head of the State Special Communications Service Yuriy Schyhol said.
Such an integrated approach should increase the effectiveness of the national cybersecurity system and, in particular, allows both enterprises and government agencies to develop, implement and continually improve structurally identical and adapted to their own needs and capabilities plans for responding to cyber incidents and cyberattacks.
The organizational and technical model assumes three levels of integrated cyber defense infrastructures:organizational and managerial (the main subjects of the national cybersecurity system); technological (interaction of technological units: information exchange, monitoring, ensuring sustainable cyberspace security) and basic (secure information infrastructure and society).
The organizational and technical model of cybersecurity is aimed, inter alia, at reducing the vulnerability of information and communication systems and ensuring their cyber resilience; creating conditions for the development of public-private partnerships in cybersecurity; and also on the creation of an effective system of national response to cyber incidents, in particular on the development of industry response teams, synchronization and coordination of their actions. The State Special Communications Service said the introduction of an organizational and technical model of cybersecurity determines responsibility for the implementation of specific tasks of each subject of cybersecurity and makes it possible to form an effective system of resource support, including personnel.
