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Hackers launch cyberattack against Ukraine's Monobank

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Hackers launch cyberattack against Ukraine's Monobank
Oleh Horokhovskyi, chief executive officer of Monobank, at the mobile-only bank service provider's office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 4, 2023. (Pete Kiehart/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Hackers targeted Ukraine's largest mobile-only bank, Monobank, with a massive denial of service (DDoS) attack on Aug. 16, according to Oleh Horokhovskyi, the company's co-founder and CEO.

DDoS attacks direct excessive amounts of traffic at a website in order to overload its servers, often causing disruptions to service.

Monobank received around one billion service requests in three hours, Horokhovskyi reported via Telegram on Aug. 16.

"We are fighting it off while drinking coffee and donuts ... We are keeping the situation under control," he said.

Monobank has previously been targeted in similar cyberattacks. A DDoS attack in January sent over 580 million service requests to the bank's website.  

Horokhovskyi did not identify a culprit, though previous threats have been linked to Russian hackers. Russia has launched thousands of cyberattacks against Ukrainian organizations since the start of its full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian hackers in turn have fought back against Russian cyberwarfare by launching attacks of their own. Ukraine's IT Army, a volunteer hacker group, claimed responsibility for a massive DDoS attack against Russian banks and Russia's Mir payment system in June.

Opinion: Ukraine’s volunteer hacker army is pioneering a new era of cyber warfare
Over two years have passed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the volunteer IT Army of Ukraine is more effective than ever. On June 20, 2024, the hacker group launched what they claimed to be the “largest DDoS attack in history” against Russia’s banking system, crippling numerous ban…
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Abbey Fenbert

Senior News Editor

Abbey Fenbert is a senior news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a freelance writer, editor, and playwright with an MFA from Boston University. Abbey served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2008-2011.

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