By KYIV. Jan 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The telecommunications holding VEON, which owns the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar, assessed the financial consequences of a cyber attack that disabled the Ukrainian operator’s network for eight days: the effect on consolidated annual revenue will be UAH 3.6 billion ($95 million).
“Due to the limited period of critical service outage, VEON does not expect a material financial impact on its consolidated results for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2023. It is expected that the use of additional IT tools necessary to restore services, replacement of lost equipment and payment of compensation to external consultants and partners in 2023 will also not have an impact. The loss of revenue associated with measures to increase customer loyalty taken by Kyivstar to compensate for the inconvenience caused during outages will have an impact. The impact of these measures on revenue is currently estimated at approximately UAH 3.6 billion ($95 million),” VEON reported on the official website on Thursday.
It is also indicated that in the coming months Kyivstar plans to continue working to correct the situation and pay compensation.
“The costs or loss of revenue from any other similar remedial measures are uncertain and cannot be reasonably estimated at this time,” it said.
As reported, after a failure early in the morning of December 12, caused by a large-scale cyber attack, Kyivstar began restoring voice services on the evening of December 13. A day later, mobile Internet from the company began working again in some regions, and the company announced its full restoration throughout the country in the evening on December 15.
The company announced the full restoration of all services, including SMS and mobile Internet in roaming, on December 20.
As compensation for communication problems during a large-scale outage, Kyivstar provided existing subscribers with the opportunity to use their subscribed services free of charge for a month and allocated UAH 100 million to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the company said.
