SBU, police develop common approaches to protecting critical infrastructure

The SBU Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police have developed common approaches to protect critical infrastructure facilities from possible sabotage and terror attacks.

During an interdepartmental working meeting of SBU counterintelligence and National Police operatives, it was noted that critical infrastructure facilities could become sites for sabotage, terror attacks, corruption abuse, and unauthorized interference, the SBU press service reports.

"Therefore, preventive action at the national level should be coordinated between security and law enforcement agencies, including to counter modern-day threats of a hybrid nature. Particular attention should be paid to critical facilities of transport, fuel and energy, medical, and utility infrastructure," reads the report.

Read alsoSBU seeing spike in activity of Russian intelligence networks in UkraineAlso, participants have discussed mechanisms for further cooperation and intelligence exchange, which will allow timely identification and neutralization of threats at such facilities, as well as minimize the impact and consequences of potential incidents.

Moreover, an agreement was reached that experts with both departments would cooperate within the framework of an interdepartmental group on critical infrastructure protection under the Economy Ministry and while preparing the relevant bill "On critical infrastructure and its protection."

Threats to critical infrastructure

Over the past years, Ukrainian infrastructure facilities have been targeted in various attacks in the cyber domain.

On December 23, 2015, Ukrainian power companies experienced unscheduled power outages impacting a large number of customers in Ukraine. In addition, there have also been reports of malware found in Ukrainian companies in a variety of critical infrastructure sectors, U.S. Department of Homeland Security noted at the time.

ESET reported that BlackEnergy, suspected to be of the Russian origin, had been targeting Ukrainian cyber infrastructure since 2014, that's per Wikipedia.

In December 2016, ESET had concluded that TeleBots had evolved from the BlackEnergy hackers and that TeleBots had been using cyberattacks to sabotage the Ukrainian financial sector during the second half of 2016

During the attack in June 2017, the radiation monitoring system at Ukraine's Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went offline. 

Several Ukrainian ministries, banks, metro systems and state-owned enterprises (Boryspil International Airport, Ukrtelecom, Ukrposhta, State Savings Bank of Ukraine, and Ukrainian Railways) were affected.