Problems with apartment sales and fraud: how the attack on registries affected the real estate market.

Ukraine is restoring the operation of registries after a cyber attack

More than a week ago, Ukraine became the target of a hacker attack, causing many state registries to be blocked, including real estate registries, legal entities, and public organizations.

This resulted in the inability to execute real estate sale and purchase transactions, register businesses, and perform other notarial actions.

The primary concern was the possible leak or alteration of data about citizens, property, and companies. However, MP Igor Friis, head of the parliamentary working group investigating the consequences of the cyber attack, stated that the information remained intact.

During the first meeting of the group, representatives of law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Justice confirmed that there had been no data leak. 'There are no changes, modifications, or deletions of information. All data is preserved in archives, allowing for the restoration of registry operations,' Friis noted.

According to him, the architecture of the registries was damaged during the attack, disrupting their interaction. For instance, tax authorities cannot obtain the necessary information from the register of legal entities, but the data itself is available for restoration.

The Ministry of Justice also reported that it is currently impossible to make changes to the real estate registry, which prevents abuses by criminals. All actions in the registries are recorded, so the risk of illegal appropriation of property due to restricted access to the registries is excluded.

Notaries have been without access to the main registries for over a week, complicating the performance of their duties. They can only carry out a limited range of actions, such as certifying wills and powers of attorney, but all data must be entered into the registries after they are restored.

Administrative service centers are also unable to register businesses, change residence, or provide other services related to the registries.

The Ministry of Justice states that it will take a few weeks to restore the operation of the registries. Although officials promised to manage it in two weeks, one week has already passed, and the deadlines remain uncertain. According to Friis, the priority is to restore the registries of inheritance, powers of attorney, and forms, but the complete restoration of the real estate registry may take much longer due to the large volume of data.

This cyber attack also sparked discussions on the need to combine electronic and paper archives. Although paper archives have their risks, experts believe that preserving paper documents along with proper cyber protection of electronic data will ensure reliable protection of citizens' rights.