A Year of War: Ukraine Faced More Cyberattacks Than Russia

Russia's attack on Ukraine reached its one-year mark on Friday, February 24, 2023. In the month leading up to the tragedy and throughout the war, frequent cyberattacks occurred between the two countries.

Data from the CyberPeace Institute shows that Ukraine received significantly more attacks than Russia.

Ukraine experienced a total of 280 attacks between January 2022 and February 2023. During the same period, Russia recorded 183 attacks.

In a more comprehensive report, the CyberPeace Institute details that the attacks on Ukraine included DDoS, malware, phishing, hack and leak, wiper, ransomware, and unknown attack types.

Several groups were identified as launching attacks against Ukraine, including Anonymous Russia, Russian Hackers Team, Clowns, NoName057(16), People's CyberArmy, XakNet, and many others.

The threats were predominantly disruptive. However, there were also two incidents involving data breaches.

In Ukraine, the sectors most affected by cyberattacks were financial institutions (13 attacks), public administration (11), transportation (9), ICT (6), commerce (5), media (4), and other sectors.

Regarding Russia, the CyberPeace Institute reports that attacks in the fourth quarter impacted 11 public sectors. However, incidents decreased by 45.8% compared to the previous quarter.

The CyberPeace Institute also provides a timeline of cyberattacks on Russia. One significant attack occurred on November 8, 2022, where pro-Ukrainian actors allegedly conducted a hacking and data leak operation targeting a Russian social media video service.

At least four files containing two million rows of data, including mobile phone data and device information of citizens, were published on publicly accessible websites.

Another notable event involved the defacement of seven Russian district administration websites. Ukrainian IT specialists displayed a New Year's address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on these websites on December 31, 2022.

Cyberattacks intensified between August and November 2022 in both countries. The following data on cyberattacks was recorded in real-time (last updated February 21, 2023) by the CyberPeace Institute:

* January 2022
* Ukraine: 6 cyberattacks
* Russia: 0
* February 2022
* Ukraine: 29
* Russia: 9
* March 2022
* Ukraine: 32
* Russia: 29
* April 2022
* Ukraine: 11
* Russia: 36
* May 2022
* Ukraine: 7
* Russia: 11
* June 2022
* Ukraine: 7
* Russia: 17
* July 2022
* Ukraine: 22
* Russia: 6
* August 2022
* Ukraine: 31
* Russia: 22
* September 2022
* Ukraine: 35
* Russia: 20
* October 2022
* Ukraine: 20
* Russia: 11
* November 2022
* Ukraine: 45
* Russia: 6
* December 2022
* Ukraine: 8
* Russia: 9
* January 2023
* Ukraine: 19
* Russia: 4
* February 2023
* Ukraine: 15
* Russia: 3

(See also: One Year of the Russia-Ukraine War: 8,000 Civilian Deaths)