Investigation
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While a European satellite Internet service has been affected since February 24 by major damage, more and more clues point to the hypothesis of a cyberattack against modems used, among others, in the army. Ukrainian.
In the chaos of the beginning of the invasion, the flow of information on the sounds of explosions and troop movements, the incident initially went almost unnoticed. On February 24 at 5:55 a.m. (Moscow time), Vladimir Putin announced that he had “decided on a military operation” in Ukraine ; a few minutes later, the main cities of the country – including Kyiv (Kiev), the capital – were targeted by missile fire. However, about an hour after the Russian president’s speech, a strange breakdown began to affect the Ka-Sat satellite network.
Stationed 36,000 kilometers above the Earth, at 9° East, Ka-Sat is essentially dedicated to providing high-speed Internet. Put into orbit in December 2010, operational since mid-2011, it covers 55 countries, the vast majority on the European continent. It was operated for ten years by the French Eutelsat before falling last year, in favor of a takeover, into the hands of the American company ViaSat, based in the county of San Diego in California. Many operators use the bandwidth of Ka-Sat: from the German skyDSL to the Turkish Eser Telekom via the British Bigblu, the ES…