Serhii Demediuk: Ukraine should become a regional leader in cybersecurity

Serhii Demediuk, Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, and Nataliia Tkachuk, Head of the Information Security and Cybersecurity Service of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Secretary of the NCCC, took part in the XV All-Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Conference of the National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine “Actual Problems of State Information Security Management”.

During the event, leading cyber experts from the public and private sectors stressed that Ukraine needs to enshrine the concept of cyber warfare at the legislative level, create Cyber Forces and strengthen the training of cyber specialists.

Among the participants of the discussion were representatives of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the State Special Communications Service, the SSU Cyber Department, the Kyiv Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the National Qualifications Agency and CRDF Global Ukraine.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, delivered a video greeting to the conference participants, saying that during the war years, our country has built a unique national cybersecurity system: “Despite the high intensity, scale and number of enemy attacks, the enemy failed to affect the defence capability of our country. Such results were achieved due to effective cooperation between specialists of the State Special Communications Service, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, the Cyber Police, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other state agencies”, – he said.

“Ukraine cannot wait for the international community to start distinguishing cyber aggression from cybercrime by law, but it must initiate this now, because Ukraine is no longer a testing ground for russian cyberattacks, it is already the frontline.
And, given our experience, we should become a regional leader in cybersecurity’, – emphasised Deputy Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine Serhii Demediuk.

Natalia Tkachuk, Head of the Information Security and Cybersecurity Service of the NSDC Office, Secretary of the NCCC, stressed the importance of the international community recognising russia’s cyberattacks on Ukraine as an act of war.

“russian cyberattacks are already aimed not only at us, but also at our allies. And the definition of cyber warfare will be effective when it has international legal consequences”, – said the Head of the Service.

Ilya Vitiuk, Head of the SBU Cyber Department, shared more details about the largest-scale cyberattacks on Ukrainian facilities. According to him, SBU specialists have neutralised almost 10,000 cyberattacks during the full-scale war. “Today it is important for us to build up both defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. We need to develop our own specialised software that will allow us to penetrate enemy systems more effectively, as well as build the concept of cyber defence in general”, – said Ilya Vitiuk.

The participants also discussed the system of training cyber specialists, the development of professional standards and the Ukrainian labour market. Proposals from the conference participants on the definitions of cyber warfare and other components of cybersecurity will be processed and taken into account in the research work of the SSU Academy.