Finnish government breach

2013-11-05

Helen Martin

Virus Bulletin, UK

Editor: Helen Martin

Abstract

Finnish Ministry of Foreign affairs breached over four-year period.

It emerged last month that the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been the victim of a malware attack over a period of four years. According to Finnish TV channel MTV3, the breach was discovered earlier this year, and the malware – which was described as being ‘similar to Red October’ – targeted communication between Finland and the European Union.

It is suspected that Russian or Chinese intelligence agencies were behind the attack – and that Finland was not the only country affected.

Finland approved an official national cybersecurity strategy in January this year, with Phase 1 of the strategy due to be put into practice during 2013–2015 and the entire set of measures to be implemented by 2016.

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