Viasat says 'cyber event' is causing broadband outages across Europe
Satellite communications giant Viasat said a cyberattack was causing network outages impacting internet service for fixed broadband customers in Ukraine and elsewhere on its European KA-SAT network.
The California-based company, which provides high-speed satellite broadband services, told ZDNet the outages were caused by a cyberattack.
"Our investigation into the outage continues, but so far we believe it was caused by a cyber event. We are investigating and analyzing our European network and systems to identify the root cause and are taking additional network precautions to prevent further impacts while we attempt to recover service to affected customers," said Christina Phillips, vice president of public relations at Viasat.
"Law enforcement and government partners have been notified and are assisting in the ongoing investigation, along with a third-party cybersecurity firm. The investigation is ongoing, but to date, we have no indication that customer data is involved."
Netblocks shared information and graphs showing that the incident began on February 24 and has continued since then.
Many have pointed out that the incident began on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine. News outlet PaxEx.Aero said intv.cz, one of the ISPs impacted by the outage, claimed there was an "attack" on the ground infrastructure for KA-SAT in Ukraine that managed to spread.
Another ISP, Germany-based EUSANET, also said it was experiencing outages in a statement to PaxEx.Aero.
British news outlet Sky News reported that an insider told them the outages were caused by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.