Norway Government Hit by Cyberattack
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A recent wave of cyberattacks has hit the public sector of Norway, which is Europe’s largest gas supplier and NATO’s northernmost member. Now a dozen Norwegian government ministries are the latest victims.
Erik Hope, head of the government agency in charge of providing services to ministries stated- “We identified a weakness in the platform of one of our suppliers. That weakness has now been shut.”
The identifying element for the cyberattack, which was uncovered on July 12th, was so-called “unusual” traffic on the supplier’s platform, according to Hope, who added that it was “too early to say who is (behind) this and what is the extent of the impact.”
According to Cybernews, Norway is currently Europe’s largest gas supplier and Western Europe’s largest oil exporter. Norway is a member of NATO, shares a border with Russia in the Arctic, and supports Ukraine with weapons, humanitarian aid, and money.
Hope elaborated that the Prime Minister’s services, as well as several offices including the foreign, defense, and justice ministries were not affected because they use a different IT platform.
This is not the first time that Norway’s state sector has been hit by cyberattacks. It suffered a DDoS attack in June 2022 that was blamed on a “criminal pro-Russian group.”
Norway’s cybersecurity agency reported that the number of cyberattacks tripled between the years 2019 and 2021, with the number of serious incidents in 2022 remaining at the same level as the previous year.
