Top Russian websites down amid war! Vladimir Putin's en.kremlin.ru, government.ru face glitches

Russian websites down: The websites of the Russian president en.kremlin.ru, government (government.ru) and State Duma lower house of parliament were intermittently unavailable for users in Russia and Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Top websites - n.kremlin.ru and government (government.ru) are facing glitches.

The websites of the Russian president en.kremlin.ru, government  (government.ru) and State Duma lower house of parliament were intermittently unavailable for users in Russia and Kazakhstan on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what had caused the problem. Asked if the Kremlin`s website had been hit by a DDoS attack, Kremlin spokesperson told Interfax news agency that he thought the platform was working normally.

Ukraine computers also hit by data-wiping software

A newly discovered piece of destructive software found circulating in Ukraine has hit hundreds of computers, according to researchers at the cybersecurity firm ESET, part of what Ukrainian officials said was an intensifying wave of hacks aimed at the country.

The company said on Twitter that the data wiping program had been installed on hundreds of machines in the country, an attack it said had likely been in the works for the past couple of months.

Vikram Thakur of cybersecurity firm Symantec, which is also looking into the incident, told Reuters that infections had spread outside Ukraine. "We see activity across Ukraine and Latvia," Thakur said. A Symantec spokesperson later added Lithuania.

Who is responsible for the wiper is unclear, although suspicion immediately fell on Russia, which has repeatedly been accused of launching data-scrambling hacks against Ukraine and other countries. Russia has denied the allegations.

The victims in Ukraine included a government agency and a financial institution, according to three people who studied the malware since its release.