The digital sabotage of the broadband satellite service that affected the KA-SAT network on 24 February did not affect our company. The partial communication blackout for Ukrainian and other European customers affected the US satellite company with the same name, ViaSat.
As is known, about three weeks ago, as Russia unleashed its invasion in Ukraine, the US satellite connection company ViaSat reported a hacking attack against it. According to Reuters online, the US National Security Agency (NSA), the French government’s cybersecurity organisation Anssi and Ukrainian intelligence are investigating. The intention is to assess whether the sabotage of the satellite Internet provider’s service was the work of hackers backed by the Russian state in an attempt to interrupt communications.
Viasat Italia and the other Group companies present in Europe are completely unrelated to this cyber attack, which has also created a great deal of inconvenience for Italian users of the American company’s Internet and TV services. Our support, protection and assistance services for over 700,000 customers in Europe have not suffered any disruption and have always been up and running. In any case, we do not want to underestimate the risks because, as also reported by the European Agency for Cybersecurity, the number of threats is increasing exponentially.