After the cyberattack on the Air Alert app, false alerts also appeared in the EasyPay app and on the alerts.in.ua online map. And in the Lviv region, some street warning systems even turned on the "Radiation Danger" signal. Therefore, experts suggest that hackers could have gained access to the system through which danger alerts are transmitted.
After the cyberattack on the Air Alert app, false alerts also appeared in the EasyPay app and on the alerts.in.ua online map. And in the Lviv region, some street warning systems even turned on the "Radiation Danger" signal. Therefore, experts suggest that hackers could have gained access to the system through which danger alerts are transmitted.
This is reported by Forbes Ukraine.
Information about the announcement and response of alarms is transmitted to the "Air Alert" system by responsible employees of regional military administrations. Then this data is automatically received by other services via API - a tool that allows different programs to exchange information. This is how the alerts.in.ua map works, in particular.
Therefore, the CEO of cybersecurity company AmonSul, Serhiy Kharyuk, suggests that the attackers gained access to the API or stole a special key that allows information to be transferred to the system.
And ethical hacker Nazar Tymoshik believes that it could have been an attack through a less secure partner. That is, the attackers could have used access to a system associated with the application.
“This attack is an example of a supply chain attack (an attack in which hackers do not attack the main target directly, but penetrate its IT systems through less secure third parties),” he believes.
Haryuk also warns that such attacks may become more frequent because artificial intelligence helps hackers carry out attacks faster and cheaper.
"Our analytical center sees an increase in the number of cyberattacks against Ukraine, in particular those targeting developers. The Russians are more actively using AI for this," said the CEO of AmonSul.
Earlier, dev.ua wrote that after the cyberattack on the "Air Alert" application, the Ministry of Digital Affairs advised Ukrainians to turn on emergency notifications on their smartphones and monitor the official channels of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The "Kyiv Digital" application, which was not affected by the attack, also continues to work for Kyiv residents.
