Ukrainian government websites hit with cyberattack

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Several Ukrainian government websites were hit with a cyberattack on Wednesday a week after two local banks were targets of another attack.

Websites for the Ukrainian parliament Verkovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were down.

The source of the attacks hasn't been confirmed, but experts fear that the attacks -- which follow a cyberattack on Ukraine's defense ministry and two local banks -- are a precursor to a Russian invasion.

"We consider these further incidents to be consistent with the type of activity Russia would carry out in a bid to destabilize Ukraine," a White House official told NBC News.

Both attacks have been classified as distributed denial of service attacks which involve disrupting traffic by overwhelming it with bots.

The European Union said it will launch its Cyber Rapid Response Team -- including Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania -- to help defend Ukraine from the attacks.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said there are no known cyber threats outside of Ukraine.

Ukraine's National Cyber Security Coordination Center confirmed the attack and said more details will come.