Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice overcomes Russian cyberattack, restores first registers to full operation

The Ministry of Justice has resumed the work of the first three key notarial registers, which were suspended after a large-scale cyberattack by the Russian Federation.

The department reported this on Facebook.

"After a large-scale cyberattack by the Russians, the Unified Register of Powers of Attorney, the Inheritance Register, and the Unified Register of Special Forms of Notarial Documents have started working," the message says.

The Ministry of Justice specified that from now on, notaries can:

• fully register powers of attorney,
• wills and inheritance cases,
• and verify unique forms.

The department noted that all notarial actions performed without access to the registers will be recorded within five working days. Enhanced cyber protection measures have been implemented.

"We are working on opening other registers," the Ministry of Justice added.

On December 20, the state registers of Ukraine were subjected to the largest external cyberattack in recent times, which suspended the work of the registers under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

Minister of Justice Olha Stefanishyna stated that the Russians attacked to disrupt the work of critical infrastructure. Previously, only state registers were affected by the attack.

Former Minister of Justice Dmytro Maliuska noted that most information from the state registers that Russian hackers attacked was already freely available. However, the Russians managed to destroy the State Register of Civil Status Acts, one of the most secret.

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It should be noted that hackers from Ukraine's intelligence recently successfully attacked Gazprombank's systems.

Recently, Ukraine's intelligence conducted a massive cyberattack on Russian Internet services. Cyber experts specifically targeted the Russian Federation's financial sector. The attack lasted a week and aimed to disrupt central Russian banks' services. The hackers also targeted Russian providers, national payment systems, social networks, messengers, government resources, and other services.

In addition, problems with ATM operations were observed in Russia due to a large-scale cyberattack by Ukraine's intelligence services.