Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine and Minister of Justice of Ukraine, together with Volodymyr Karasteliov, Acting Head of the Cyber Security Department of the Security Service of Ukraine, held a briefing on the most extensive cyber attack on state registers by russians in recent times.

Olha Stefanishyna said that as a result of this attack, the Ministry of Justice had suspended the operation of all state registries administered by the Ministry of Justice to avoid further threats.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that all civil status acts of birth, death, marriage and divorce can be registered in the usual manner, but with the use of paper carriers. In the near future, the official Facebook page of the Ministry of Justice will publish information on civil registration offices that can be contacted throughout Ukraine to take appropriate actions. Meanwhile, all social payments related to the occurrence of certain acts of civil status, made on the basis of relevant applications, will also be considered after the registers are restored.

Olha Stefanishyna said that a draft resolution would be submitted to the Government to suspend the running of all deadlines until the registers are restored.

Also, the registration of information on testaments, amendments to them, revocation of testaments, consolidated inheritance files, inheritance agreements, amendments to them, termination of inheritance agreements, duplicate notarization of powers of attorney, termination of their validity is carried out without access to the registers. In other words, these actions will be performed by a notary. In fact, all notarial acts that do not require verification of data in the registers will be performed by public and private notaries.

State registration of legal entities, their symbols, public formations that do not have the status of a legal entity, individual entrepreneurs and separate subdivisions of a legal entity is carried out exclusively by the software of state registers.

Currently, work is underway to restore the registers that are within the competence of the agency. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the events of the past few days have not affected the operation of other state information systems.

Olha Stefanishyna emphasized that all the data that was in the registers had been saved and would be restored.

First of all, the Ministry of Justice will restore the Unified Register of Powers of Attorney, the Unified Register of Special Forms of Notarial Documents and the Inheritance Register, which will ensure proper data accounting and minimize the negative impact of potential illegal notarial acts.

The next priority is to restore the State Register of Civil Status Acts, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, and the State Register of Rights to Real Estate and Their Encumbrances.

“I ask citizens to be patient. We have also deployed the relevant capacities of the free legal aid system. Anyone who needs additional information or has questions that cannot be answered on the official resources of the Ministry of Justice and related services can contact the free legal aid hotline. There, citizens will be provided with legal assistance, explanations and assistance in resolving any issues that arise until the state registries are fully restored,” emphasized Olha Stefanishyna.

Volodymyr Karasteliov, acting head of the SBU Cyber Security Department, said that from the first minutes of the cyber attack, the SBU Cyber Security Department had been involved in the work. He noted that the Security Service of Ukraine was carrying out comprehensive measures in three areas: repelling the cyberattack; restoring the infrastructure and overcoming the consequences; and documenting the cyberattack as a crime.

The SBU opened a criminal investigation into the incident under a number of articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, including Article 438, “Violation of the laws and customs of war.” The main version that the SBU is considering is the involvement of russian special services in the attack, in particular, the main directorate of the general staff of the armed forces.

Regarding the potential data leakage and its acquisition by the enemy, the SBU official said that the investigation was still ongoing. In addition, he said that the SBU regularly provided recommendations and technical assistance at the request of relevant agencies and authorities.