Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
Google is giving the Ukrainian government 50,000 free, one-year licenses to its Workspace tools as the country continues to fend off cyber assaults nearly one year into the war with Russia, the company announced Thursday.
Why it matters: Google Workspace gives Ukraine access to the company's email spam filters and phishing monitoring tools, which will help Ukrainians fend off the swarm of phishing and malware attacks they've encountered in their email inboxes.
- Google Cloud CISO Phil Venables tells Axios that before, Ukraine was using Gmail and other Workspace tools in an "ad hoc" way.
Driving the news: Google made the announcement the same day Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov visited the company's Washington office.
The big picture: The expansion of Workspace in Ukraine adds to a growing list of investments Google has made in the country since the war broke out.
- Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Google gave the Ukrainian government access to its free tools for at-risk groups, known as Project Shield, that help block distributed denial-of-service attacks.
- Google-owned threat intelligence firm Mandiant has also been providing direct assistance to the Ukrainian government throughout the war.
What they're saying: "If they need extra services, extra capacity, we're going to look to deliver," Venables tells Axios.
- "The situation continues to evolve, and we evolve in our ability to help Ukraine."
Between the lines: Ukraine is bracing for a possible influx of Russian cyberattacks on its critical infrastructure during the winter, making any additional cyber tools all the more important.
- So far, while the country has fended off at least one known cyberattack on its energy infrastructure, it has mostly faced a series of less sophisticated attacks.
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