International satellite internet and TV provider Viasat released an update on the massive cyber-attack that took place on February 24 (the day Russian troops invaded Ukraine) and affected thousands of its customers across Ukraine and Europe.
“On 24 February 2022, a multifaceted and deliberate cyber-attack against Viasat’s KA-SAT network resulted in a partial interruption of KA-SAT’s consumer-oriented satellite broadband service. While most users were unaffected by the incident, the cyber-attack did impact several thousand customers located in Ukraine and tens of thousands of other fixed broadband customers across Europe,” the company said in the incident report published on Wednesday.
“We believe the purpose of the attack was to interrupt service. There is no evidence that any end-user data was accessed or compromised, nor customer personal equipment (PCs, mobile devices, etc.) was improperly accessed, nor is there any evidence that the KA-SAT satellite itself or its supporting satellite ground infrastructure itself were directly involved, impaired or compromised,” Viasat added.
An investigation into the incident revealed that attackers took advantage of a misconfiguration in a VPN appliance to gain remote access to the trusted management segment of the KA-SAT network. They then used the network access to execute commands on a large number of residential modems that overwrote key data in flash memory on the modems, cutting off access to the network.
Viasat said it found no evidence that standard modem software or firmware distribution or update processes involved in normal network operations were used or compromised during the attack.
Cybersecurity Help statement on the critical situation in Ukraine
On February 24, people in many cities and towns across Ukraine woke up to the sounds of explosions and artillery fire, as the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of the country. Such actions are unacceptable, political ambitions of any man aren’t worth of blood, tears, and destruction of millions of lives. We give our full support to the Ukrainian people in these hard times. No more war! Слава Україні!
