Prague, Oct 8 (CTK) – The foreign, health and defence ministries are the Czech state bodies that face cyber-attacks most often, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes Thursday, referring to information from the National Security Office (NBU).
The NBU started registering cyber-attacks only this year when a new law on cyber security ordered all computer network administrators to report the attacks to one centre, the paper writes.
At least one attack on a government body or some other office is registered every day.
“The most attractive for hackers seems to be the Foreign Ministry thanks to information it has from NATO and the European Union,” NBU deputy director Jaroslav Smid told the paper.
The Health Ministry is attractive for hackers as its databases include personal data, which might be a compromising material about some politicians, MfD writes.
No attack similar to the paralysing of a number of Czech news servers and banks within a few days by unknown perpetrators in March 2013 has been reported this year.
The attacks try to be inconspicuous, yet the situation may be very serious, the paper writes.
NBU director Dusan Navratil said the motive of most of the hacking attempts is spying, but the first cases of hackers attempting to cause real damage have appeared. He mentioned an attack on a German metallurgical furnace that caused the iron to get cold and harden inside the furnace last year.
Computer expert Ales Spidla said more attention is focused on hackers sponsored by foreign countries. Hackers paid by Russia and China operate in Europe most often, MfD writes.
The first Czech exercise simulating a cyber-attack on a nuclear power plant and checking the experts’ readiness to cope with it was held at Masaryk University in Brno on October 7.
