Hacker Attack against the Austrian Foreign Ministry: Which "State Actor" is behind it?

OrganizationsOther ♦ Published: January 23, 2020; 18:25 ♦ (Vindobona)

Since the beginning of the year, the IT system of the Foreign Ministry has been exposed to a serious cyber attack. Due to the severity and nature of the attack, it was quickly suspected that a state actor was behind the attack. Foreign Minister Schallenberg has issued a statement to this effect.

The hacker attacks on the Austrian Foreign Ministry began in the first week of January and were classified as serious by the Foreign and Interior Ministries. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / jaydeep_ [CC0]

Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg did not want to give further details in his statement in the National Council for reasons of investigation tactics, and therefore did not want to confirm that a state actor was behind the attack.

He said that there were not yet enough tangible clues pointing clearly in the direction of a certain authorship. In any case, it was a targeted…