The Ukrainian government is considering a possible transfer of its sensitive data and servers abroad if the Russian army further advances into the country, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
This comes after the Director of the Information and Press Department of Russian Federation, Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova, claimed they had seized biological material found in Ukraine bio labs. Both the US and Ukraine denied these allegations.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that reports of biolabs in Ukraine were fake news propagated by Russia.
Due to grave threats from Russian forces, Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, is planning a contingency plan to move its critical information and servers out of Ukraine.
Zhora shared that some countries were already offering to host data without mentioning the names of the countries.
Reuters reported:
The Ukrainian government is preparing for the potential need to move its data and servers abroad if Russia’s invading forces push deeper into the country, a senior cyber-security official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Mr Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, emphasised his department was planning for a contingency, but that it is being considered at all suggests Ukrainians want to be ready for any Russian threat to seize sensitive government documents.
“We are preparing the ground,” Mr Zhora said.
Plan A was to protect information technology infrastructure within Ukraine. Removing it to another country would only be a “plan B or C”.
The move could only happen after regulatory changes approved by Ukrainian lawmakers, Mr Zhora said.
Government officials have already been shipping equipment and backups to more secure areas of Ukraine beyond the reach of Russian forces, which invaded on Feb 24 and are laying siege to several cities.
Last month, Mr Zhora told the journal Politico that there were plans to move critical data out of the capital Kyiv should it be threatened, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further.
Ukraine has received offers to host data from a variety of countries, Mr Zhora said, declining to identify them. For reasons of proximity, “a European location will be preferred”, he said.
“There are a lot options,” he said. “All the proposals are highly welcome and worth considering.”
Mr Zhora gave few details of how such a move might be executed, but he said past efforts to keep government data out of Russia’s grasp involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another.
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