Ukraine says it prevented Russian hacking of armed forces combat system

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian special services have foiled an attempt by Russian hackers to penetrate the Ukrainian Armed Forces' combat information system, the SBU security service said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has reported an increase in Russian attempts to hack into computer systems of the Ukrainian government, armed forces and energy sector since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Russia has repeatedly denied such accusations.

"As a result of complex measures, SBU exposed and blocked the illegal actions of Russian hackers who tried to penetrate Ukrainian military networks and organise intelligence gathering," SBU said on the Telegram messaging app.

The service said hackers tried to gain access to "sensitive information on the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the location and movement of the Defence Forces, their technical support".

SBU said the responsibility for the attack lay with a sophisticated Russian hacking team, known within the cyber security research community as Sandworm. Cyber specialists found that hackers planned to use Ukrainian military tablets to spread viruses in the battle system, SBU said.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Nick Macfie)