KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian state railways Ukrzaliznytsia, the country’s largest cargo carrier, said on Tuesday that a large-scale cyber attack had also hit its online freight services.
An outage was first reported on Sunday when the rail company notified passengers about a failure in its IT system and told them to buy tickets on site or on trains.
The company later said its online systems had been subjected to a large-scale targeted cyber attack.
Trains have been the main mode of transportation for domestic and international passengers since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, as well as a key route for weapons, fuel and equipment deliveries.
“In addition to passenger services, our IT specialists and partners are working to restore freight services,” the company said on Facebook.
“Immediately after the cyber attack, we temporarily switched to paper-based document management, which we notified our customers about. All railway employees have been instructed.”
A Ukrainian security official and a senior government source, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week the attack looked like it had been carried out by Russia.
Ukrzaliznytsia provides detailed instructions for commercial companies on how to order wagons under the new conditions and how to dispatch wagons in the direction of export ports and the western border.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
