70 Ukrainian governmental websites compromised by hackers, including the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Education and Science, and the Cabinet of Ministers
Microsoft reports a soar in malware attacks targeting the Ukrainian government, as well as numerous Ukrainian non-profit and IT organisations
Russian troops observed amassing in Russia’s ally Belarus to carry out military exercises
Ahead of the brewing conflict, last-minute precautions are taken by allies, including $200 million in security aid provisioned to Ukraine from the US
Russia carries out exercises involving 6,000 troops, and 60 jets near the Russian border with Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula
US confirms Ukraine’s right to join NATO
UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) asks UK organisations to bolster their cyber defences ahead of the upcoming conflict
US deploys 3,000 NATO troops to eastern Europe
Russia and Belarus initiate 10 days of military manoeuvres
A Distributed Denial-of-Service attack impacts two large Ukrainian banks, PrivatBank and Oschadbank, as well as The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. The UK’s NCSC later released a statement attributing the DDoS attack to the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). The statement also mentions the decision to publicly attribute this incident, which underlines that the UK and its allies will not tolerate malicious cyber activity from Russia
fighting escalates in separatist regions of eastern Ukraine
Hours before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a denial-of-service attack is launched against the Ukrainian branch of the commercial communications company Viasat. The “cyber event” causes outages for several thousand Ukrainians, and impacts wind farms and internet users in other European countries. NCSC later assesses that Russia “was almost certainly responsible for the attack”
Russian president Vladimir Putin announces a “special military operation” in eastern Ukraine, an effective declaration of war