Russian Cyberattacks on Ukraine, FAA 5G Directive, Truth Social Launches with Issues
Ukraine came under heavy cyberattacks before the invasion on Thursday.
Theadora Soter
February 24, 2022 – Prior to the Russian attacks on Ukrainian Thursday, the country experienced a series of cyberattacks on its government and bank websites late Wednesday afternoon, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said Wednesday the cyber disruptions were considered Distributed Denial of Service attacks, meaning online devices overwhelm a website with fake traffic.
Wednesday’s cyberattacks come a week after Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and local banks were the targets of similar cyberattacks. Despite the Russian government denying any involvement with such attacks, Anne Neuberger, the White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, claimed that Russia’s military intelligence directorate was behind the attacks.
As Russia continues to attack Ukraine, President Joe Biden said he will speak on Thursday about the conflict. Biden asserted Wednesday that “the world will hold Russia accountable.”
Federal Aviation Administration responds to 5G interference
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday new landing requirements for certain aircraft at airports where 5G signals could potentially interfere.
The requirements issued Wednesday are known as a revised Airworthiness Directive that will change the way certain Boeing 737 airplanes land at certain airports. The directive states that some interference may cause instrument reading issues that cannot be relied upon by the pilots, with the directive requiring that if the aircraft experiences certain conditions during a radio-guided approach to the airport, it must abort the landing and try again.
The FAA said approximately 2,442 airplanes in the United States and 8,342 worldwide will be impacted.
The newly issued regulations come weeks after many American airlines warned that they would cancel flights as a result of possible interference between aircraft altimeters and 5G signals. The fear was that interference from 5G signals could negatively affect aircrafts at takeoff or landing. Since then, Congress has heard on the issue and large telecoms have delayed 5G deployment around airports.
Trump-backed app launched Monday
Former President Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, was released to the public via the Apple Store on Monday, but has experienced technical difficulties since.
Truth Social, which is run by former California Representative Devin Nunes, is supposed to be an uncensored alternative to Twitter where people can share their opinions without any form of censorship. Instead of “tweets” there are “truths,” and instead of “retweets” there are “re-truths.”
After its Monday launch, users reported that the platform began to slow down substantially as more users began to sign up. This lag eventually resulted in downloaders being added to a growing waitlist instead of given full access to their accounts.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that the waitlist consisted of 401,477 members.
Nunes stated the app will be fully functional by the end of March.
