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Russian Railways hit by major cyberattack

1 min read
Russian Railways hit by major cyberattack
The logo of the Russian Railways company seen on a train at the Sosnovo railway station in the Leningrad region of Russia on Sept. 3, 2022. (Maksim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Russian Railways company was hit by a large-scale cyberattack on April 1, the company said, as the website and app became inaccessible.

The state-owned Russian railway operator described the incident as a "massive DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack," saying that efforts to restore operations are underway.

The news follows a cyberattack against Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) on March 23, which also rendered its website and app inaccessible and prevented online ticket purchases for days.

Ukraine said that the attack against Ukrainian Railways resembled the tactics of Russian intelligence services.

Downdetector.su, a website monitoring website crashes, recorded a spike of complaints about Russian Railways' website at 11:45 a.m. local time, with 489 users reporting problems at the time. The website remains inaccessible as of 2:15 p.m.

It remains unclear who was behind the cyberattack. Russian Railways said their ticket offices at train stations are operating as usual.

The disruption came only a day after the Moscow Metro app became inaccessible, with its website displaying Ukrainian Railways' statement about its technical failure.

’89 hours of non-stop work’ — Ukrainian Railways’ battle against a cyberattack by ‘the enemy’
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Martin Fornusek

Reporter

Martin Fornusek is a reporter for the Kyiv Independent, specializing in international and regional politics, history, and disinformation. Based in Lviv, Martin often reports on international politics, with a focus on analyzing developments related to Ukraine and Russia. His career in journalism began in 2021 after graduating from Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, earning a Master's degree in Conflict and Democracy Studies. Martin has been invited to speak on Times Radio, France 24, Czech Television, and Radio Free Europe. He speaks English, Czech, and Ukrainian.

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