The Minister of Justice believes that hackers’ attacks on Norwegian companies are unacceptable. She says we live with a different threat picture after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Justice and Emergency Management Minister Emily Inger Mehl (SB), Police Director Benedict Björnland and Director Sophie Nystrom at the National Security Service (NSM) will meet with the press on Wednesday evening.
– All indications are that the attack comes from a Russian criminal environment, according to Justice Minister Emily Inger Mehl (Spain) during the period Wednesday evening press conference.
They are aimed at a hacker attack which means, among other things, that BankID and the website of the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority are down.
Totally unacceptable
The BankID website only mentions “Service not available”, i.e. Services are not available. There is also instability in Altin. NAV is also vulnerable to cyber attack.
– Such an attack on Norwegian interests is, of course, totally unacceptable.
NSM chief Sophie Nystrom described the attack as a “mini-crisis”.
– They have been partially successful in cutting a number of important services in shorter periods, Nystrom tells VG.
Photo of Foreign Minister Anniken Heitfeldt (Labour) misused and manipulated by hackers, posted on the Telegram communications platform.
Another threat picture
Mehl points out that there have been many cyber attacks lately, and that the picture of digital risks has changed.
In the time following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we found ourselves in a different threat picture, setting a different security policy in the world around us.
It also notes that the government has allocated NOK 200 million to strengthen national digital security through the National Security Agency.
– The security authorities said today that they are able to deal with the attack that we are seeing. It is important that we can deal with such attacks in order to restore security to people.
Refers to criminal environments
– Do you know if the hacker group has any connection with the Russian authorities?
It’s too early to speculate on this kind of thing. It is known that a group, possibly a criminal environment, came out themselves and referred to this attack. But these are questions we will return to later.
Mehl will not answer whether Norwegian authorities contacted Russian authorities after the attack.
Today, NSM has dealt with this attack, and it is too early to know who is behind it.
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