A new wave of a large-scale cyberattack may hit Ukraine on Independence Day, August 24, head of Cyber Police Serhiy Demediuk told Glavkom.
"We are warning that this will happen on August 24, on Independence Day. We see that such attacks occur on the eve or on the day of Ukraine’s big holidays," Demediuk said, answering a question on when the next cyberattack is possible.
Read alsoNATO to provide cyber defense equipment to UkraineThe official noted that M.E.Doc malware included many elements that had not been activated yet.
"We are not yet fully aware of the virus’s properties. We have only about 1,300 official applications on which criminal proceedings have been initiated. We must consider this: if criminals destroyed such an important channel for obtaining information, they retained some reserves, very powerful reserves," he said.
Read alsoSBU: Ransom demands in cyberattack "only cover-up""I’d like to believe that Petya.A accidentally affected their channel and burned their network, but it's not the case. That’s because we clearly know that the main goal of cybercriminals is to destroy traces of their interference in vulnerable critical facilities," he added.
Cyber police revealed that the modifications to the virus code included instructions in Russian.
"If I were an English speaker, I wouldn’t write instructions in Russian," Demediuk said, commenting on the version of Russian involvement in the cyberattack.
He said: "I was talking only about Russian-speaking [hackers], I wasn’t talking about Russia. The main version is interference by Russian intelligence, but I can’t confirm it yet."
