'Russian missiles can't destroy the cloud': Ukraine leader describes emergency migration
(2022/11/30)
- Reference: 1669793410
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/30/ukraine_cloud_migration/
- Source link:
Re:Invent Ukraine's Mykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister and minister for digital transformation, spoke to press at Amazon Web Services' re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, describing how emergency migration to the cloud is securing the country's digital infrastructure.
"Let me be honest with you. This is priceless. State registers and databases are critical information infrastructure," he said.
According to Liam Maxwell, AWS Director of Government Digital Transformation, "in January 2022 it was increasingly clear there was going to be an attack on Ukraine from Russia … in February 2022 Ukraine's parliament passed a law allowing government and private sector data to move to the cloud, and we started engaging really closely with the Ukrainians," he said.
[1]
"On the day of the invasion we met the ambassador at the Ukranian embassy in London and we sketched out a plan of how to identify the parts of the State that we could help them back up, and that included things like the population register, land and property ownership, tax payment records, education records. That laid the groundwork to build a strategic move to help the Ukrainian government and safeguard their digital infrastructure."
[2]
[3]
Three AWS Snowball devices – designed for offline migration of terabytes of data – were flown to Ukraine via Poland. "They became the first part of preserving Ukraine's data," said Maxwell.
[4]Sandworm gang launches Monster ransomware attacks on Ukraine
[5]Yandex plans to break up with its Russian motherland
[6]European Parliament Putin things back together after cyber attack
[7]EU reaches agreement on satellite comms project: Opens Iris
"This is the most technologically advanced war in human history," said Fedorov. "Every day we see how technologies can kill. But we also see how technology can help.
"AWS helped us in the very first days of the full-scale invasion. AWS leadership made a decision that saved [the] Ukrainian government and Ukrainian economy. The solution to save Ukrainian databases and state registers was cloud migration," he added. "AWS made one of the biggest contributions to Ukrainians' victory by providing the Ukrainian government with access and resources for migration to the cloud."
The cloud migration works alongside Diia, a government smartphone app, to enable continuity of government business. The Diia project was already in progress before the invasion, and is [8]described as "a single portal of public services for the population and business." In other words, Ukraine was already engaged in digital transformation, but the advent of war made its implementation urgent.
[9]
Has AWS received Russian cyberattacks because of its involvement? "I'm not going to talk about that, but you can imagine that we undertook to help Ukraine based on the ability … you know that security is job zero across AWS … we have the ability to protect ourselves," said Maxwell.
Fedorov also signed a "memorandum of understanding" with AWS, which we were told "confirms our commitment to continue to work together."
Fedorov also commented: "As you know the Russians are targeting our energy infrastructure … what we like the most about this partnership with cloud companies is that Russian missiles can't destroy the cloud."
[10]
Yes, AWS is getting some publicity out of a tragic situation – but the point is well made. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/russia_ransomboggs_ransomware_ukraine/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/28/yandex_reorg_geopolitics/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/24/european_parliament_russia_ddos/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/eu_reaches_agreement_on_satellite_iris/
[8] https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/digitalization/
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"Let me be honest with you. This is priceless. State registers and databases are critical information infrastructure," he said.
According to Liam Maxwell, AWS Director of Government Digital Transformation, "in January 2022 it was increasingly clear there was going to be an attack on Ukraine from Russia … in February 2022 Ukraine's parliament passed a law allowing government and private sector data to move to the cloud, and we started engaging really closely with the Ukrainians," he said.
[1]
"On the day of the invasion we met the ambassador at the Ukranian embassy in London and we sketched out a plan of how to identify the parts of the State that we could help them back up, and that included things like the population register, land and property ownership, tax payment records, education records. That laid the groundwork to build a strategic move to help the Ukrainian government and safeguard their digital infrastructure."
[2]
[3]
Three AWS Snowball devices – designed for offline migration of terabytes of data – were flown to Ukraine via Poland. "They became the first part of preserving Ukraine's data," said Maxwell.
[4]Sandworm gang launches Monster ransomware attacks on Ukraine
[5]Yandex plans to break up with its Russian motherland
[6]European Parliament Putin things back together after cyber attack
[7]EU reaches agreement on satellite comms project: Opens Iris
"This is the most technologically advanced war in human history," said Fedorov. "Every day we see how technologies can kill. But we also see how technology can help.
"AWS helped us in the very first days of the full-scale invasion. AWS leadership made a decision that saved [the] Ukrainian government and Ukrainian economy. The solution to save Ukrainian databases and state registers was cloud migration," he added. "AWS made one of the biggest contributions to Ukrainians' victory by providing the Ukrainian government with access and resources for migration to the cloud."
The cloud migration works alongside Diia, a government smartphone app, to enable continuity of government business. The Diia project was already in progress before the invasion, and is [8]described as "a single portal of public services for the population and business." In other words, Ukraine was already engaged in digital transformation, but the advent of war made its implementation urgent.
[9]
Has AWS received Russian cyberattacks because of its involvement? "I'm not going to talk about that, but you can imagine that we undertook to help Ukraine based on the ability … you know that security is job zero across AWS … we have the ability to protect ourselves," said Maxwell.
Fedorov also signed a "memorandum of understanding" with AWS, which we were told "confirms our commitment to continue to work together."
Fedorov also commented: "As you know the Russians are targeting our energy infrastructure … what we like the most about this partnership with cloud companies is that Russian missiles can't destroy the cloud."
[10]
Yes, AWS is getting some publicity out of a tragic situation – but the point is well made. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y4c3ziJoWJTyytjKXAVOMwAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/russia_ransomboggs_ransomware_ukraine/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/28/yandex_reorg_geopolitics/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/24/european_parliament_russia_ddos/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/21/eu_reaches_agreement_on_satellite_iris/
[8] https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/digitalization/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y4c3ziJoWJTyytjKXAVOMwAAAA8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Why Now?
Will Godfrey
They apparently started to put this together nearly a year ago, and it seems it's been pretty complete for a long time. I'm guessing that AWS has already been under attack from Russian supported crims, so there's no point in keeping quiet about it now.
Re: Why Now?
Phil O'Sophical
re:Invent is an annual conference, the previous one was in 2021, before the invasion.
Oh dear .... that is certainly concerning and definitely disconcerting nowadays
Please see here on El Reg ....... [1]https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/11/29/lockheed_martin_cyber_training/#c_4576858 ......and expect and prepare yourselves for more news of what could possibly go wrong .... apart from practically everything and virtually nothing, right, ..... whenever any masterplan is mostly significant inaction and for much that exists to capture and captivate the ignorant and unwary masses is planned to remain exactly the same as was before with identical command and controllers intent on wielding and exercising their failing powers.
So beware if you don’t dare care and share novel ground-breaking news of AWEsome Developments in Titanic Programmes for Colossal Projects, now that you have been made more aware of the environment you have been launched into, for such is as that is and there is no escaping from its IT and AI. I Kid U Not.
[1] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/11/29/lockheed_martin_cyber_training/#c_4576858