The presentation for my talk at the "Ukraine and the Challenges of International Law: Annexation, Aggression, Cyber Warfare" conference hosted at the Cambridge University
10. Cooperation with NATO, EU, UK, US
EU Common
Security and
Defense
Policy (CSDP)
NATO Cyber
Defense Trust
Fund
UK Cyber
Security
Capacity
Building
Programme
US cyber-
security
assistance
10
In a large amount of affected enterprises critical business processes were stopped for 1-2 days;
Several weeks in many cases were required to fully recover oprations
Losses are up to the 0.5% of country GDP
The backdoor, which was used to compromise the tax reporting software users got the Pwnie award on the BlackHat conference
The first attacks attempts started a month before the main attack. The tax reporting software vendor refused the backdoor existence.
The WannaCry lessons were not studied, still many systems were not properly patched
The tax reporting software service or its user account usually had all rights in the system, which facilitated the attack
Companies which had its critical networks isolated got less damage
Internet started from 1990 and the CERT team in 2007 and the world record in 2010 100 Gb/s DDos
The power grids were stopped for several hours (which could lead to the humanitarian disaster due to the frost at winter)
The incidents repeated in 2015 and 2016 in the same period of year
The power grid management systems were not separated from the Internet
The power supply was resumed only because of the "manual mode
Power system operators thought that their PCs are operated by local "IT guys
The PR services of the affected organizations worked inefficiently
Attackers were active on the network for several months
Attackers had private tools for attacks on industrial systems
Perhaps there were several independent groups of attackers (representing different intelligence services)
Losses reached millions of USD
Attackers have studied systems and processes of institutions for many months
InfoSec departments of the institutions first selected the wrong way of the internal fraud investigation
Improper internal investigation activities led to the loss of digital evidence
Timely manual monitoring of financial accounts allowed to identify further malicious activity
The attackers known well payment systems and ATM protocols
Multi-weeks denial of service (DoS) attacks on websites
Attackers constantly changed tactics
Websites were not ready to defend against attacks
Personal accounts of mail and social networks were under the attack
Also the targets were mobile phones
In the center of Kiev, demonstrators seized the room used for power systems management
Main regulations
The cyber-security strategy, approved by the President1 in 2016
The cyber-security strategy implementation plans approved by the Cabinet of Ministers 2,3
The sanctions list, which bans Russian IT companies and social networks4
The President decree on the national cyber security center5
The National Security Council decisions on the urgent cyber-security measures 6,7
The National Law on Cybersecurity8
Some other important regulations:
Law on personal data protection
EU cyber-crime convention
National technical standards on information security and cryptography
1http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/962016-19836
2http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/440-2016-%D1%80
3http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/155-2017-%D1%80#n13
4http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/1332017-21850
5http://www.president.gov.ua/documents/2422016-20141
6http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/n0015525-16/paran2#n2
7http://www.rnbo.gov.ua/documents/447.html
7http://zakon3.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2163-19
Main entities
The Information Security Authority1 and its CERT team2
The Security Service of Ukraine and its cyber-security situational centers3
The Cybercrime police unit4
The State Concern Ukroboronprom (Ukrainian Defence Industry) cybersecurity center5
The Military center of information and cyber security6
The National coordination center on cyber-security (governed by the National Security Council)
The National Bank of Ukraine (only for financial institutions)
1http://dsszzi.gov.ua
2http://cert.gov.ua
3https://ssu.gov.ua/ua/news/1/category/2/view/3668#.i42HGqpp.dpbs
4http://cybercrime.gov.ua
5http://cyberguard.com.ua
6http://www.mil.gov.ua/ukbs/pravila-informaczijnoi-ta-kibernetichnoi-bezpeki-v-zoni-provedennya-ato.html
The actors of the major incidents were not properly identified and prosecuted
No proper prediction of major incidents
Ukraine authorities are not capable by themselves to investigate complex malware or SCADA malware
The national cyber-security system is still immature, national cyber-security standards about 20 years old or even refer to the USSR standards
The high corruption level does not allow effective investments into the national cyber-security
Personal data has very weak means of protection in the state databases
E-government systems and IT controls either do not work or efficiently being bypassed by public servants
Insufficient salaries for cyber-security professionals in the state agencies (up to several hundreds USD per month)
State information security authority has a conflict of interest as it puts the rules and checks the compliance against them
Development of national security capabilities:
State demand for the word-class security products and services
Educational programs to create generation of reverse-engineering and cyber-security experts
Highest requirements for cyber-security specialists in the state agencies and cyber-security national actors
Creation of national security tools and research centers (e.g. SCADA systems labs, etc.)
National cryptography development
National cyber-security audit strategy for critical infrastructure assets
Effective IT governance at the state agencies
Culture and ethics level improvements at the state agencies
Proper cyber-risk management and responsibility for failures of state agencies officials
Overall improvement of state agencies efficiency and their continuous audit and monitoring
Independence of critical infrastructure cyber-security from the centralized information security authority
Improved security of the supplied chain for IT goods and services
The lack of skilled persons or even persons who knows English well at cyber-security positions at state agencies and national cyber-security actors
The hardware and software security verification is at the lowest level
The lack of responsibility for cyber-security failures, the lack of due care and due diligence from agency heads
High dependency of the IT supply chain from one neighbor country
Majority of the Internet traffic is still routed through the one neighbor country
There is no civil society control and sufficient limits on the lawful interception activities
Corrupted officials from the law enforcement agencies often practice seizure of all IT equipment in companies and require bribes to return it back
Clean national internet segment from infected and misconfigured devices, which facilitate cyber-attacks
Remove cracked/pirated software from the public systems
Implement continuity standards for media and telecoms for the hybrid-war affected locations
Implement effective filtering mechanisms on the national Internet traffic exchange points
Ensure availability of the redundant internet routes through all the country
Improve digital evidence and threat indicators sharing capabilities
Implement effective civil society controls over unauthorised interception and collection of data
Provide resources for military and security services to effectively conduct forensics and memory acquisition of IT devices in the conflict zones
Support from donors:
Participation in the EU Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP)
NATO Cyber Defense Trust Fund
Participation in the UK Cyber Security Capacity Building Programme
US cyber-security assistance
Involvement of Ukraine in the UK, EU, US, NATO projects:
Procurement of cyber-security services and goods in Ukraine
Support for Ukraine domination in the Russian speaking Internet media segment
Outsourcing of cyber-security operations to Ukraine
Joint research programs with Ukrainian institutions. Potential areas are:
Nuclear plants cyber-security
Military cyber-security
Cryptography (Ukraine has a strong crypto and math school inherited from the USSR)