Ukraine to transfer sensitive data from Russia’s reach

Ukraine’s government now prepares for the potential need to transfer its data and servers abroad as Russia’s forces push deeper into the country.

Kyiv’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection stated that they currently plan for contingency.

The second-largest country by area in Europe flags its readiness for any Russian threat to seize sensitive government documents.

Accordingly, senior cybersecurity official Victor Zhora mentioned that they had already prepared the ground for the scheme.

He stated that they would start the move if the potential regulatory changes received approval from the local lawmakers.

Their Plan A focuses on the protection of the IT infrastructure within Ukraine. Eventually, Plan B and C will transport the data to another country.

It has received offers to host data from various nations, but Zhora declined to identify them. He noted that they prefer a European location for the reason of proximity.

The previous efforts to keep government data out of Russia’s reach involved the physical transport of servers.

At the same time, the department used the virtual migration of data from one server to another.

Recently, Ukraine’s government officials have shipped equipment and backups to more secure areas.

This decision came as the tensions between Kyiv and Moscow significantly escalated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of carrying out genocide on late Wednesday.

This allegation came after the Kremlin aircraft bombed a children’s hospital, burying patients in the rubble.

Notably, this grim attack is despite a ceasefire agreement for civilians to flee the besieged city of Mariupol.

In line with this, Zelenskiy repeated his call for the West to further tighten sanctions on the aggressor country.

Then, the United Nations human rights body said they would verify the number of casualties in the incident.

Ukraine’s protocol to move critical data

Upon lawmakers’ approval, Zhora emphasized that not all of the government’s data would be immediately sent out of the country.

He explained that local agencies must decide on a case-by-case basis. They could choose to keep their operations running inside Ukraine or evacuate them.

The transfer of critical data became a topic of international concern following the Taliban’s lightning offensive in Afghanistan.

The conquest of Kabul meant that their invaders were in a position to inherit sensitive data. This includes payroll information for Afghan government employees and soldiers.

This gives the aggressors potential leads on arresting or eliminating domestic opponents.

Likewise, Russia possessing Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files could be helpful to control the country.