Ukrainian parliamentary election interference (2014)
| Date | October 2014 shortly before the Ukrainian parliamentary elections were held |
|---|---|
| Suspected Actor | A pro-Russian hacktivist group called 'Cyberberkut' with suspected ties to the Russian government is suspected to be behind the attacks. |
| Target and Method | The website of the Ukrainian central elections commission which organized the elections was shut down. Ukrainian security officials characterized the operation as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack which can slow down or disable a network by flooding it with communications requests. |
| Purpose | The central elections commission described the attack as "just one component in an information war being conducted against our state." [1] The attack can be seen as part of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine which started with the unlawful annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in February 2014. |
| Result | Ukrainian officials announced that they were prepared for this case and used a backup to restore the entire system. |
| Aftermath | In 2015 Ukraine was again subject to a cyber attack conducted by Russia against an Ukrainian power grid.
Ukrainian officials announced that they will upgrade their cyber defence system in order to prevent election meddling for the upcoming presidential elections in March 2019. |
| Analysed in | Scenario 01: Election interference |