After yesterday’s publication of the material about the U.S. government’s search for a Russian hacker who allegedly hacked «Diia» in 2022 and posted data on 13.5 million of its users on the darknet, ITC.UA received a comment on behalf of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The sender of the email used the domain thedigital.gov.ua, but did not indicate her position or any contacts other than her email address in the letter.
The letter once again refutes the information about the hacking «Actions». It also notes that the database posted on the darknet was “under the guise of data from Diia”. Moreover, the information about 13 million users was actually a compilation of “various databases that had been merged much earlier from private companies.” At that time, «Diia» itself allegedly had only 1.5 million users. To avoid accusations of misrepresentation, we reproduce the text of the letter without any changes.
“Hello! I am writing regarding the post about a possible attack on Diia https://itc.ua/news/tam-mogly-byt-vashy-dannye-ssha-obyavyly-v-rozysk-hakera-kotoryj-veroyatno-vzlomal-diyu-v-2022-godu/
The case file does not contain information about the hacking of Diia. In 2022, the person involved in the case posted a database on the darknet under the guise of data from Diia. This was immediately detected by the Ukrainian special services, so the materials were purchased and analyzed. At that time, the Diia portal had only 1.5 million users. Experts studied the materials in detail and found that the 13 million data were a compilation of various databases that had been merged much earlier from private companies.
Your materials contain examples of misleading screenshots. Please check with the original source before publishing, we are now on a united information front and such headlines and articles undermine public confidence. You can read the case file and realize that this is a hypothesis and a clickbait headline.
The best solution would be to remove this post so as not to mislead citizens.
We hope for your understanding.”
At the same time, the information provided in the letter contradicts a previous statement by Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov on January 2, 2022. At that time, Fedorov saidthat «Action» has crossed the 13 million active users mark, and the number of users is increasing by 50-70 thousand every day.
This statement was made 11 days before a massive hacker attack on Ukrainian government resources On the night of January 13-14a number of government websites were hacked. At the time, the State Special Communications Service emphasized that the attackers did not gain access to state registers where Ukrainians’ data is stored, so users of the «Diia» app have nothing to worry about.
In a weekHackers put up for sale a database with personal information of millions of Ukrainian citizensand claimed that it was the base of the service «Action». The Ministry of Digital Transformation called it a provocation and a continuation of the hybrid war.
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