Kyivstar: Ukraine’s Achilles Heel
By Audrey MacAlpine - December, 2023
Dnipro, Ukraine - Russian hackers wiped out Ukraine’s largest mobile network last week, Kyivstar, bringing nearly 24 million users, and the country, to it’s knees.
Mobile networks, landlines and even the nation's air raid sirens went offline in Russia’s latest major cyber attack on Ukraine."This attack is a big message, a big warning, not only to Ukraine, but for the whole Western world to understand that no one is actually untouchable," Illia Vitiuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) cybersecurity department said.
It is perhaps also a message for Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile network provider, that it is not untouchable.
Around the country everyday life came to a standstill as credit card terminals, taxi apps, and GPS services like Google Maps all went offline. The attack, which began at 5:00 am on December 12th caused disruptions for over two days.
Siobhan’s Trust, a small Scottish charity operating in eastern Ukraine could not reach its aid distribution points for lack of GPS. Restaurants and hotels reverted to “cash-only” or had to rely on bank transfers for payment. Lines outside of shops for cellular providers like Vodaphone stretched down the block as people desperately tried to find alternative solutions.
Even more sinister was the fact that air raid sirens in Sumy and Kyiv Oblasts, some of the country's hottest areas in terms of Russian bombardment, also went offline. In an effort to alert its citizens of incoming missile attacks, Ukraine quickly set up a new Emergency Alert system much like those employed in the United States and England.
Tallied against the current population of Ukraine, Kyivstar users account for over half of all Ukrainians highlighting an uncomfortable truth; lack of private-sector competition is impacting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and its citizens.
In many of Ukraine’s fringe towns and villages, Kyivstar is more often than not the only network provider. Cell coverage in the whole of the country is typically only available in and around population centers. When traveling between cities by train or car it is all too common to have no network connection whatsoever.
Why fix it if it ain’t broke?
One could equate Ukraine’s affinity for Kyivstar to the Lada, the durable and much loved Soviet era car. Brand recognition is high and the service up until now has been cheap and dependable.
However the most recent Kyivstar hacking has pocked a hole in Kyivstar’s dependable verneer and it’s clear the company is feeling the pain. Since the Kyivstar outage, ad-hoc advertisments for the company have appeared in apartment building lobbies and mailboxes in an attempt to win back soured consumers.
Since the ousting of its former board member and Russian Oligarch Mikhail Fridman, Kyivstar has brought in new big names to its board like former CIA director, Mike Pompeo. It’s hard still to acertain whether this is a step in the right direction, or more of the same thinking that got Kyivstar here in the first place. Many view the Kyivstar outage as retaliation for ousting former Russian board members like Fridman.
With its new Emergency Service alert system, it’s clear that Ukraine is desperate to modernize and learning as it goes. With new anti-trust laws slated to pass in January 2024 perhaps this most recent outage will leave a hole for alternative providers like Vodaphone to fill.
