Police Seize Servers of Ukrainian Software Firm After Cyberattack

Officials Say Company Is Accused of Spreading Malware

While the Ukrainian government was very quick to insist that last week’s cyberattack must be the fault of Russia, the nation’s Cyber Police appear to disagree, as they’ve raided a Ukrainian software company, seizing a number of servers, and saying they believe that company was behind the spread of the malware.

The target of the raid was M.E. Doc, a company that makes accounting software. Officials say the investigation is ongoing, but that the first infections came from a malicious update of the accounting software released through the company’s servers.

Officials say the vulnerability that led to the attack was written into M.E. Doc’s software updates months before the malware actually hit, suggesting the overall cyberattack involved months of planning, and some malicious activity actually started back in April, with the software stealing data from customers, including large banks and businesses.

The attacks started in Ukraine, and quickly spread to Russia, and ultimately worldwide. Ukrainian officials continue to maintain that there is some “nation-state,” presumably Russia, behind the matter, despite the operation having originated within a Ukrainian company.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.