Exclusive-Hackers who crippled Viasat modems in Ukraine are still active- company official

Viasat offices are shown at the company's headquarters in Carlsbad, California, U.S. March 9, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Blake

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hackers who crippled tens of thousands of satellite modems in Ukraine and across Europe are still trying to hobble U.S. telecommunications company Viasat as it works to bring its users back online, a company official told Reuters.

Viasat Inc has been working to recover after a cyberattack remotely disabled satellite modems just as Russian forces pushed into Ukraine in the early hours of Feb. 24. The official said a parallel attack was launched at almost exactly the same time and used "high volumes of focused, malicious traffic" to try and overwhelm Viasat's network and was still ongoing.