Cybersecurity and Resilience in the Data Centres Design in Wartime
Andrii Davydiuk, Vitalii Y. Zubok · 2025
In Ukraine, with the advancement of digital technologies, an increasing number of government agencies and citizens are becoming participants in digital information exchange. The rapid pace of digitization naturally led to the creation of an extensive system of Internet service providers and data centres. Following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, cybersecurity issues began to take on broader significance, considering threats from other domains of military operations. The temporary occupation of Crimea and the eastern territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions also resulted in the absence of state control over network segments and the IT infrastructure of data centres in these areas. The seizure of territories and the onset of hostilities were not anticipated in advance by the government leadership, and therefore, measures to minimize cyber risks were not implemented accordingly. The IT infrastructure was not designed considering capabilities for rapid evacuation, segment localization within the geographical space, emergency data backup, and so forth. This publication is dedicated to analyzing the possibilities of minimizing cybersecurity risks for data centres in the context of armed conflict. A comprehensive analysis of situational response to crisis incidents in data centres has been conducted within this publication. It has been established that the main criterion is to ensure the resilience and continuity of data centre operations. Accordingly, an approach has been presented to assess the survivability of data centres as critical infrastructure objects during wartime. An analysis of the main threats to data centres has been carried out. Based on these threats, an approach for the overall reliability assessment of data centres has been proposed, taking into account the mobile component and mathematically describing the set of indicators used therein. Building upon the aforementioned mathematical formalizations, a method for the situational response to security crisis incidents in data centres has been developed in the form of a formal model with a description of the set of actions. The research emphasizes the need for adaptive and flexible cybersecurity strategies that can evolve in response to dynamic threats posed by state and non-state actors during conflict. It highlights the importance of integrating cybersecurity practices with military and defence operations to ensure seamless communication and data protection. Furthermore, the study offers insights into future improvements for safeguarding digital infrastructure in high-risk zones, contributing to the broader discourse on cybersecurity resilience in geopolitical conflict scenarios.