Attacks on Russian websitesdonations in cryptocurrencies, notifications with images of the war and information on the number of Russian soldiers who have died in it: the Ukrainian technology companies and industry specialists have also become relevant players in the war with Russia.
Reface, a Ukrainian meme creation startup, has sent two million users in Russia texts like “No to war. Go out and protest”, “Open to find out how many soldiers have died”, “We don’t have the money yet but we do have a lot of encouragement” (famous phrase by Medvedev, the former president of Russia, which he had said in Crimea and had become a meme famous).
MacPaw (CleanMyMac, Setapp, Gemini Photos), a company that develops apps that help optimize the work of Apple computers and it has millions of users in Spanish-speaking countries, is actively participating, and has its own corporate outlet where everyone, including Russian users, can “read the truth about the war in Ukraine.”
The company has also provided a free access to “CleanMyMac” for journalists covering the war in Ukraine.
“Our job now is to help Ukraine resistraise awareness among the Russian people as much as possible so that they realize the horrible truth, and perhaps take to the streets to stop Putin,” Oleksandr Kosovan, the company’s CEO, told EFE.
Grammarly, the tenth most valuable startapp in the United States and founded in Ukraine, “has allocated $5 million to organizations and funds in support of the people of Ukraine” and has blocked “users located in Russia and Belarus from using Grammarly services.
“Cyber attacks prohibited”
“Strictly prohibited from carrying out cyber attacks from company computers or from the client, network, account or VPN”. This is the subject of an email sent last week by a Ukrainian company in the services sector to which EFE had access.
In the email sent last week it is explained that These types of actions can damage the company’s resources. or those of the clients.
Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mikhailo Fedorov, promoter of “Diia”, a government app for digital services and “mobile” passports, has organized a digital army that daily informs its subscribers about their next goalsmainly Russian propaganda websites.
A month before, hackers who according to cybersecurity specialists in Ukraine worked for the Russian governmentmanaged to destabilize several Ukrainian government websites.
“Since the war began, many Ukrainian specialists began to attack Russian serversthrough denial-of-service attacks, with such enthusiasm that company managers sent a letter asking not to use their servers and facilities,” explains Eugeniy, a 30-year-old man who works in the marketing department of one of the companies in the sector.
Kostia, a 35-year-old software developer, says that “it is very logical to prohibit organizing attacks from corporate computers”but adds that many programmers at the company he works for have personal laptops.
“Nobody can forbid us to do it from personal computers”, adds Kostiaand although he personally prefers to help the Ukrainian army in another way – by paying 1,000 euros in taxes in advance and donating hundreds of euros to the army – Kostia admits that his comrades organize themselves in groups to participate in the attacks.
The company for which he works, and whose name Kostia prefers not to reveal, is also collaborating with the Ukrainian government to invite its partners in other countries not to work in the Russian market.
Why the ICT sector is important in Ukraine
According to the 2021 annual report of the Ukrainian ICT Association, in the last 25 years the Ukrainian IT sector has made a qualitative leap.
Starting almost from scratch it has become an industry that employs almost 300,000 professionals and grows between 25 and 30% annually.
Related news
It tops the list of service exporters (more than 5 billion dollars a year) and generates more than 4% of Ukraine’s GDP. Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of ICT services in Europe.
“Ukrainian professionals are not cheap, but at the same time they are a quality workforce,” says Eugeniy, who believes that Ukraine has a very serious foundation of maths training that gives it an advantage in the market.
www.elperiodico.com
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.