A tribute to the Ukrainian public servants on the front lines of cyber warfare

A human tragedy has been playing out in Europe. A sovereign nation is under brutal attack, its cities savagely destroyed and thousands of its people killed.

While civilian and military resistance efforts are fighting back against the invasion, public-sector employees have teamed up and pooled together their skills to ensure that key tech infrastructure remains operational so that the government can continue to function.

In a world where cyber attacks have become powerful weapons capable of taking down institutions, the government in Kiev had the foresight to prepare. Last autumn, with the help of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and experts sent by Germany and the United Kingdom, the country rolled out a wide-ranging training initiative for its civil servants.

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To start, an online test, available on two sites, was used to select participants. The next step involved a programme for basic skills consisting of nine online modules and a two-day classroom session, a mobile training centre designed to travel around the country, and a team of 52 teaching staff responsible for training participants on such topics as how to prevent and manage digital threats (hacking, phishing, disinformation).

To educate the entire workforce about potential risks (which would later materialise), four videos were put together and posted on all internal networks. A brochure was widely distributed containing data and statistics on previous incidents around the world and explaining best practices. To round out the initiative, the Ministry of Digital Transformation lent its expertise to develop “Digigram”, a chatbot designed to answer common questions about cyber hygiene, different types of attacks and security rules.

As expected, attempted attacks were made against government sites at the outset of the conflict, but the reaction was swift, proving the effectiveness of the government’s upskilling initiative.

In closing, we would like to share this message of hope with our Ukrainian colleagues:

“Пишайтеся своєю незмінною відданістю відстоюванню цінностей верховенства права! Отримайте нашу найбільшу підтримку в ці важкі часи.” (1)

¹ “You should be proud of your unwavering dedication to defending the values of the rule of law! We stand behind you in these difficult times” (Thank you to Andrii and Olga for the translation.)