As the Ukrinform correspondent reported, Volodymyr Kondrashov, spokesperson for the State Private Communications and Information Protection Service of Ukraine, warned about this at a briefing.

According to him, hostile hackers intensified phishing attacks on Ukrainian users of mail services and social networks. With the help of phishing, the special services of the enemy are trying to collect all possible information about the Ukrainians. And the focus of their attention is not just officials, soldiers or influential public figures, but also all our compatriots.

Kondrashov recalled that the State Cyber ​​Protection Center warned of the sharp intensification of mass campaigns to collect personal data of Ukrainians in early March.

“Unfortunately, the situation has not improved at this time. For example, this week the government’s computer emergency response team, CERT-UA, reported a cyber threat from hacker group APT28 linked to Russia’s GRU. This group launched an espionage campaign that exploited vulnerabilities for webmail software. For this purpose, they used e-mails containing up-to-date news on the situation in Ukraine. In particular, one of the e-mails contained content disguised as an article from the “NV” publication. Letters were sent to more than 40 Ukrainian organizations. However, our information with international partners “We were able to localize this threat,” he said.

Also, according to him, the attackers’ attempt to gain access to the mailboxes of the Ukr.net service is indicative. Specifically this week, hackers sent phishing emails with the subject “malicious activity detected” to people who appeared to be sent on behalf of the tech support service. The letters contained pdf files with a warning: “If you do not change your password after following the specified link, you will lose access to the mailbox.” The link led to one of the 118 pre-made sites that mimic Ukr.net. In this way, third parties can gain unauthorized access to electronic mailboxes.

“We ask Ukr.net users not to click on suspicious links, not to set up multi-factor authentication, and also to check which applications and services have access to your mailboxes and take all measures to strengthen security,” said Kondrashov.

According to him, we must be vigilant: Russian hackers are constantly using new methods to gain unauthorized access to the computer systems of Ukrainian citizens. For example, actively spreading pirated software — even through Ukrainian torrent trackers.

Reportedly, the cyber police made recommendations to avoid falling victim to scams using phishing. It is important that any differences in the URL (extra characters, misspellings) can point to a phishing site. Users should always pay attention to the address of the required site, as well as not follow suspicious hyperlinks and enter confidential information. Ukrainians are especially advised to use verified sites for online shopping and get information about benefits and services only from the official pages of government agencies.