Ukraine moves sensitive data outside its border

Ukrainian government officials stores sensitive Data outside the country to protect it from Russian cyber and physical assault, and appealing to other nations to move their databases abroad across Europe. The government informations was held in data centres in Ukraine, and needs to be moved to the cloud before backup copies can be transferred. Ukrainian government wants to be on a safe side, we want to have our backups abroad, ” Mr. Dubinskiy said.

Moving databases to the cloud is for security purpose because this will help government officials to still have access, even if a data centre in Ukraine were to be demolished by Russian weapons, he said. The government specified legal and security provisions to help protect the data bases from cyber and other threats, he added. During the early days of the war, a government data centre was damaged by Russian Missiles, Mr Dubinskiy said. But no data was lost because backups were made available.

“It definitely was a red flag for us that we have somehow to save and secure our critical data storages,” – Mr Dubinsky said.

As at Feb 24th, the first day of the invasion, and Russia struck a military base outside Kyiv and also attacked Ukranian government buildings since. Last month, the U.S; U.K, European Union and other countries blamed Russia for a cyber attack on a satellite communications company during their invasion. Which brought internet service for thousands of Ukrainians and Europeans and disnepted remote control systems for wind farms in Germany.

Russia never accepted the blame of attacks on Ukrainian cyber. But this helped the Ukrainian to opt for the protection of their data. ” should incase of emergency, we need to make sure our IT systems continue operating. ” Victor Zhora, deputy chief of the country’s state service of special communication and information protection said last month.

Ukraine is already storing some government data in Poland, in a specially designed private cloud, Mr Dubinskiy said. He didn’t elaborate on the technology aspect, but said the server hosts only Ukrainian information, and Ukrainian and Polish officials tested it together. He is working on similar arrangements with other countries including Estonia and France.

Mr Dubinskiy office gave priority to “VIP” databases. We’re responsible for the personal data of our citizens, we’re responsible for all the sensitive data, “he said. Whatever the cost,” it’s a question of security. Even during the war, services for citizens, such as digital identification, need to continue and the government needs access to tax data and other information. There is need to protect the government data due to risk of hackers having access to it, and also the physical and cyber risks only increase during a war, said Chris Kubecka, a cyber warfare specialist at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington.

How a government data is sensitive, which requires protection as not to give room to the Russia government using it to track their movements and contacts. Mr. Dubinskiy said, some government registries are massive , with around 1.5 petabytes of data, and officials in some cases spent weeks designing a data storage system, testing it, then adjusting it, he said. Government officials ensures the moving of data abroad need to consider if the telecommunication networks enabling them to sync data can be trusted.

Some government databases are already on cloud serves in Poland, and officials are negotiating similar arrangements with France , Estonia and several other nation. There are alot options, ” he said. ” All the proposals are are highly welcome and worth considering Zhora gave few information of the move might be carried out, but he said past efforts to keep government data out of the enemy’s reach. Government agencies would have to make a decision on a case by case basis whether to keep their operations running inside the country or evacuate them.

The move of data by government has become a topic of international concern as a result of the Taliban’s lighting offensive in Afghanistan last August that took city after city as U.S and other foreign forces withdrew. The Taliban conquest of Kabul meant that their forces were in a position to inherit sensitive Data- such as payroll information for Afghan government employees and soldiers. Which they could mine for leads on how to arrest or eliminate domestic opponents. The same is the case of Russia and Ukraine Russia possessing Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files could be helpful if Russia wants to control Ukraine. Ukrainian officials though protecting its citizens also prevent Russian forces the access to their documents which could tampered with and used for propaganda purposes.” Jakubec said.