Cyber specialists of the Security Service of Ukraine exposed and stopped criminals who tried to legalize illegal constructions by hacking the Unified State Electronic System in the field of construction, and also issued fake certificates of attestation of architects.
This was announced by the Cyber Security Department’ Head of the SBU, Ilya Vityuk.
“We exposed illegal schemes in time and did not allow criminals to hack the state electronic system. We are not talking about ordinary cyber hacking, but about crimes that could lead to very serious consequences in the future. If it were not for the reaction of the Security Service of Ukraine, hundreds of “problem” buildings that were erected in violation of current requirements and standards would have been legalized in Ukraine. And this is the risk of man-made accidents and other emergency situations. And that means it’s a risk for thousands of Ukrainians,” Ilya Vityuk emphasized.
Also, according to him, the launch of a new large-scale corruption scheme in the construction sector was not allowed.
“The construction sector was the first where the Ministry of Digitalization team managed to implement a real digital transformation. Digitization provides transparent tools to capture every action. Thanks to the creation of the Unified State Electronic System in the field of construction, the state saves billions of hryvnias annually. In addition, it became possible to prevent and detect illegal schemes in the construction sector. After all, the system is built in such a way that the digital footprint of each user remains forever and is easy to track,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Digital Transformation.
According to the special service, high-ranking officials of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, well-known “shadow” intermediaries are involved in the organization of the events. The involvement of state and local government officials is also being checked.
The perpetrators tried to obtain money illegally by forging and selling permit documents to representatives of the construction business.
Among the frauds exposed are illegal registrations of objects that violate state building regulations, as well as a scheme for issuing fake certificates of professional attestation of architects. At the same time, anyone could be made an “architect”.
For this, the representative of the National Union of Architects handed over to a controlled third party his electronic key for entering the electronic system and editing the data of former architects from the Crimean Autonomous Republic.
During the search of the dealers’ places of residence and work, the law enforcement officers discovered the following:
▪️ seals of authorities, as well as individual business entities in the field of construction and architecture;
▪️ computer equipment and other digital media with evidence of criminal acts.
In order to establish all the circumstances of the offenses and bring the culprits to justice, a pre-trial investigation is currently underway under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Part 3 of Art. 361 and Part 3 of Art. 362.
Also, the Department of Cyber Security of the Security Service of Ukraine provided appropriate recommendations to specialists of the Ministry of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, which made it possible to eliminate existing gaps in the electronic system.
Ilya Vityuk noted that the same vulnerabilities of the system could be used by the special services of the Russian Federation to carry out cyberespionage and cyberterrorism actions, recalling that last year the SBU repelled 4,500 Russian cyberattacks.
Crime detection measures were carried out by the SBU DKIB staff together with the National Police under the procedural knowledge of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the assistance of the Ministry of Information.