Ukrainian authorities may move secret government documents and servers in another country to prevent them fr om falling into the hands of Russian invaders, Reuters reports, citing a Ukrainian cybersecurity official.
Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, told Reuters that his department is “preparing the ground” in case of failure to protect IT infrastructure within Ukraine (which is Plan A).
Removing the data to another country would only be a “Plan B or C”, and this could only happen after regulatory changes approved by Ukraine’s Parliament, Zhora said.
Ukrainian officials are already moving equipment and data to more remote areas of the country, out of Russia’s reach, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further.
According to Zhora, Ukraine has received offers to host data from several countries. For reasons of proximity “a European location will be preferred,” the official said.
He gave no details on wh ere the government may relocate the sensitive information, or how it might be done. According to the deputy chief, past efforts to transfer secret data beyond Russia’s reach involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another.
Cybersecurity Help’s statement on the critical situation in Ukraine
On February 24, people in many cities and towns across Ukraine woke up to the sounds of explosions and artillery fire, as the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of the country. Such actions are unacceptable, political ambitions of any man aren’t worth of blood, tears, and destruction of millions of lives. We give our full support to the Ukrainian people in these hard times. No more war! Слава Україні!