The massive cyberattack on the IT systems of the Austrian Foreign Ministry is still in full swing almost four weeks after its discovery. And it is likely to keep the specialists from the Interior, Defense and Foreign Ministry working together on countermeasures for longer. In similar cases, it sometimes took months for the attacker to be finally repelled.
Austria Was Several Times The Target
According to the Reuters information available, there are also some points that speak against an attack with Turkish participation. This is how the majority of the attacks were directed against countries and institutions that are direct and great geopolitical interest for Turkey: the Greek and Cypriot government’s email services or the Albanian secret service were attacked. According to IT experts, there is already a real cyber war.
In the past, Austria has also become a target of Turkish hackers several times. In 2018, the Twitter account was hijacked by EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who was then responsible for the accession process with Turkey. In 2017 there had also been an attack against the website of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which resulted in the site having to be taken offline for almost two hours. The exact starting point of the attacks could not be determined at that time.
Attacks On Bank And Company Computers Are Also Planned
According to the EU’s investigation, the hacker group hides a network of Turkish nationalists who have declared the cyber war to the EU. In March the same group hijacked websites in Austria and threatened to cause billions in damages. In the previous month, they fell victim to the appearance of the Islam-critical online medium Europe News. In Internet forums and video clips, the hackers advertise their successes and spread anti-Kurdish and anti-European slogans. According to the EU, the self-proclaimed soldiers of the cyber world want to attack European banking, corporate and press computers in the future.
