"Today, the largest external cyberattack on state registers of Ukraine in recent times took place. As a result of a targeted attack, the work of the Unified and State Registers, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, was temporarily suspended. Now, together with the team and specialists from other services, we are coordinating work to counter the cyberattack and restore systems. It is already clear that the attack was carried out by the Russians with the aim of disrupting the work of the critically important infrastructure of the state," Olga Stefanyshyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, reported on her Facebook page.
As of the morning of December 20, the websites of the Ministry of Justice and the State Enterprise "NAIS" (which administers vehicle registration databases) only display the message "Technical work is underway on the site."
On the same social network Facebook, the Main Service Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs posted the following message:
Due to a malfunction in the operation of some state registers, the service centers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are forced to suspend the provision of certain registration services for vehicles related to a change of owner:
- under a purchase and sale agreement concluded at the service center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with business entities, with a notary, with the Central Administrative Center and through Diya;
- by contract of gift, exchange, inheritance;
- under a leasing agreement, stock exchange agreement;
- culling.
At the same time, the following services remain available:
- first registration of vehicles (new and imported from abroad);
- replacement, reservation, order and extension of the storage period of license plates;
- examination services (taking exams, issuing driverʼs licenses);
- replacement and renewal of driverʼs license and vehicle registration certificate;
- assigning the appropriate user.
Of course, in such cases, the first question that arises for everyone is “when will everything work?” The preliminary answer is contained in the above-mentioned post by Olga Stefanyshyna: “The time for primary restoration will be approximately 2 weeks. The specifics of providing services to citizens will be provided tomorrow during the day.”
So, we currently have a forced pause in the registration of car purchases and sales, about the end of which we will certainly promptly inform Ukrainian motorists. The first to receive information will be subscribers to the Telegram channel of the Institute for Car Market Research.
