Ukraine Central Bank Says Cyberattack Hits Lenders

Ukraine’s central bank on Tuesday said a cyberattack hit several lenders in the country, hindering operations and leading the regulator to warn other financial institutions to tighten security measures.

“The National Bank of Ukraine has warned banks… about an external hacker attack on the websites of some Ukrainian banks… which was carried out today,” the bank said in a statement.

Banks were experiencing “difficulty in servicing customers and performing banking operations” due to the attacks, it said.

“All the financial market participants have taken steps to tighten security measures to counteract these hacker attacks,” it said, adding that “banking infrastructure is securely protected” and further attacks “will be efficiently warded off.”

Among the banks apparently affected was Oschadbank, one of Ukraine’s largest, it said on the website, forcing it to limit services available to clients. 

“The bank’s services together with the National Bank of Ukraine are putting in maximum effort to reinstate access to all bank services,” it said.

Earlier an attack was also reported by the power company in Kiev, Kyivenergo. “We were forced to turn off all of our computers,” a company representative told Interfax Ukraine agency.

Ukraine’s delivery service company Nova Poshta, which was also attacked Tuesday, identified the virus that hit its computers as Petya.A, a type of ransomware which locks users out of the system and demands purchase of a key to reinstate access.