Akamai Supports Ukraine Government In The Fight Against Cyberwarfare

The State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP) is the organisation that provides the country's leadership and core government institutions with reliable and secure communications, in both peacetime and wartime. Among its many functions are safeguarding government communications, information protection and cyber defence. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the beginning of the continued escalation of conflict in February 2022, Akamai proactively offered cybersecurity support to the SSSCIP via the intermediary partner Datagroup.

From March 2022, Akamai protected the web resources of 20 different government entities on a pro bono basis. The most attacked site was president.gov.ua, where Akamai observed countless Web Application attacks and high volume DDoS. The peak attack volume was as high as 1 million malicious requests per second. During this time, Akamai has helped to keep many of the Ukrainian government’s web resources up and running. There were also threats of compromising official web resources to spread deep-fakes that could have negatively impacted morale in the country, especially in the first months of the full-scale war. It was essential for the SSSCIP to have state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions in place to prevent malicious attempts like this.

In such turbulent times, the ability to react quickly and easily is of the utmost importance - and can be the difference between success and failure, especially with one-day campaigns. In May 2022, the State Postal Service Ukrposhta organized a national one-day campaign to raise funds for the Ukraine Army by selling stamps online. The load on the servers and a simultaneous cyberattack overwhelmed the previous anti-DDoS solution. Within 1.5 hours, SSSCIP made a full integration of Akamai’s solution to restore the campaign. Akamai has continued to support SSSCIP, a key part of the country’s infrastructure, in running without a glitch in the digital domain. 

Speaking about the collaboration with Akamai, Victor Zhora, SSSCIP’s Chief Digital Transformation Officer said: “The Akamai team has been so flexible and quick to act. Throughout our work with them, they have shown an unwavering commitment to help us protect key parts of our government entities and, by extension, the people of Ukraine. We are delighted to have formalised our work together since October last year, as it enables us to stay strong and protected.”

Daniil Polovyi, Senior Inside Sales Representative, Ukraine & MEA at Akamai said: “Collaborating with the SSSCIP has been inspirational. As a Ukrainian myself, I feel privileged and humbled to help protect my country on the digital front. At Akamai, we stand in solidarity with Ukraine and our dedicated team of cyber experts will continue to work tirelessly to help the country win the fight against cyberwarfare.”