Russian Hackers Launch Large Cyberattack on Ukraine’s State Registries, Halting Justice Ministry Systems

Russian hackers targeted Ukraine’s state registries, causing a temporary shutdown of critical systems within the Ministry of Justice, Minister Olha Stefanishyna confirmed late on December 19.

Stefanishyna, who also serves as Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, described the incident as the largest cyber assault on Ukraine’s state infrastructure in recent memory.

“Together with the team and specialists from other agencies, we are coordinating efforts to counter the cyberattack and restore the systems,” Stefanishyna’s statement reads. “It is already clear that Russians carried out the attack with the intent to disrupt the operation of critical state infrastructure. Our experts are working intensively to gradually restore access to the registries.”

She emphasized that priority will be given to restoring the following registries:

• The State Register of Civil Status Acts.

• The Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs.

• The State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate and Their Encumbrances.

According to Stefanishyna, the estimated timeframe for the initial restoration is approximately two weeks. Preliminary assessments indicate no threats to the functionality of other resources.

The hackers claimed to have stolen and deleted over one billion rows of data, including information stored in Poland.

At the beginning of December, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský reported that Russia is believed to be linked to nearly 100 incidents in Europe in 2024, classified as hybrid attacks, espionage, or influence operations.