EYP: preparations for digital war

The National Intelligence Service is preparing for the possibility of a large-scale cyber war. Due to the tension in the region, it is starting to shield critical government infrastructure from possible cyber attacks.

According to information from "K", in the immediate future and for the coming months, the EYP will carry out vulnerability checks on a number of government targets, such as the Maximos Palace, the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Finance.

The results of the tests (penetration tests) will be confidential and the leadership of the government will be informed about them initially. Depending on the findings, there will be initiatives to strengthen the digital security of sensitive Organizations.

International developments, after all, reveal the growing use of electronic weapons in international conflicts and disputes between states. The recent conflict between Israel and Iran, although it went "small" due to the pandemic, is a revealing example.

At the end of April, there were serious malfunctions in the operation of Israel's water supply and sewerage systems. The competent national service of the country - the corresponding EYDAP - initially attributed the problem to technical malfunctions, but then admitted that its systems had become the target of an electronic attack.

There were reports in the country's press that the attack was launched by Iran using in the USA and Europe. On May 9, Iran's largest commercial port, Shahid Rajaee near the Straits of Hormuz was shut down as a result of a large-scale cyber attack. A Washington Post publication attributed the attack to Israel, while the revelations were indirectly confirmed by Israel's Chief of Defense Staff Aviv Kochavi, stating that "Israel will continue to act against its enemies with many and different tools."

In the government and the EYP, the first thoughts about shielding critical government infrastructure for the possibility of an electronic war were made in January when Turks managed to disable government , such as for example the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Parliament and even the EYP itself.

The Turkish group "Anka Neferler" claimed responsibility for those attacks. In a Facebook post, she wrote: "Greece is threatening Turkey in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. "And now it threatens the Libyan conference." The attack did not cause damage to the computer systems of sensitive government agencies, but did alarm the government and the National Intelligence Service.

In the period that followed, there were discussions between EYP executives and the competent authority of the Ministry of Digital Policy in order to take immediate measures to strengthen cybersecurity. However, the spread of the coronavirus and the global health crisis "temporarily" "frozen" the developments.

Record problems

According to information from "K", in the immediate future, the EYP, after consultation with the National Cybersecurity Authority, will begin vulnerability checks on ten "critical" government targets. Executives of the service with the help of specialized personnel will carry out virtual cyber attacks and attempts to infiltrate the computer systems of ministries and other government agencies.

The aim of the process is to identify and record problems that exist in two areas. The first concerns the security policy of the Organizations: Which employees have access to specific computers? Which computers or servers have security codes? How often do these codes change? The problems will be pointed out to the administrations of the Organizations so that they can be dealt with immediately as their "treatment" does not require money.

The second objective of the tests is to check whether the servers, computers and that they use can meet modern safety requirements or must be replaced. There is concern that due to the decade-long economic crisis in the country, most of the systems are technologically outdated and thus vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

As, after all, "K" had revealed in April 2019, the Maximos Palace, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the EYP and the Hellenic Police were targets of cyberespionage. According to cross-referenced information, the perpetrators had managed to gain access to the internal networks of government agencies and intercept their electronic mail. The attack was detected due to a malfunction in the use of emails, while the control revealed that the problem was due to a cyber attack against υ ονομάτων Ιντερνετ με κατάληξη .gr και .ελ, την τεχνική υποστήριξη του οποίου έχει το Ιδρυμα Τεχνολογίας Ερευνας στο Ηράκλειο της Κρήτης.

Vulnerability checks by the EYP will take about 10 months and will be limited to government services and structures. For the digital security of the Public Benefit Organizations, for example, such as PPC or EYDAP, the Directorate of Cyber ​​Defense of the General Staff of National Defense (GEETHA) is responsible.

Exchange of "fire" from hackers

Following the cyber attacks last January, Turkish hackers "threw" on June 7 the website of the Municipality of Chalkidona, Thessaloniki. They changed the look of the front page and posted a photo of Kemal Ataturk with the slogan "Know your limits".

A group of Turkish hackers claiming to be "the Turkish cyber army" claimed responsibility for the attack. The idiosyncratic cyber war continued as the Anonymous Greece group attacked - in retaliation - the website of the Turkish Ministry of National Defense, shutting it down. "After an attack by Greece and specifically a municipality (something insignificant for us) from Turkey, we also attacked.

"The Turkish Ministry of National Defense is out," the members of the Greek team said in a post.

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Written by newsbot

Although the press releases will be from very select to rarely, I said to go ... because sometimes the authors are hiding.

One Comment

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  1. The majority of public services have Windows 2003/2008 server, Windows XP licenses with Windows 7/10 broken, free antivirus with exclusions for cracks for Autodesk / Photoshop / Office, administrators users and personal data in shared folders with "Everyone" rights , syzefxis emails with registrations on sites for diapers, sanitary napkins, travel offers and gift vouchers 500 euros from supermarkets and gift iphones (no spam, registrations !!) and all this in systems pinned Online in ministries.
    I believe that the "big" heads of computer science are trapped in theories with ready solutions to given problems, ignoring the chaotic reality.

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