Cyberattack Hits Austria’s Interior Ministry Email Servers

Austria’s Interior Ministry hit by cyberattack on email servers; 100 accounts affected, no citizen data compromised.
Unsplash/Markus Spiske

A cyberattack on the IT infrastructure of the Interior Ministry (BMI) was uncovered several weeks ago.
As the BMI announced on Saturday, irregularities had been detected in one of its office IT systems. Behind this, however, was a targeted and professional attack. Specifically, there were unauthorized accesses to the BMI’s mail servers. As a result of the security measures taken, external email communication is currently restricted.

Around 100 of the approximately 60,000 BMI email accounts were partially affected, though sensitive content is generally not communicated by email. Employees with these accounts were directly informed, the affected systems were isolated, and external IT security experts were brought in, which is standard in such cases. IT security measures have since been further strengthened.

Data and information systems not affected

The BMI emphasized that the fulfillment of police core tasks was never impaired at any point during the attack: “Operational capacity is fully ensured and essential IT services remain available.” Police information systems, databases, registers, or personal data of citizens were not affected by the cyberattack, the ministry stated. A criminal complaint for unlawful access to a computer system has been filed with the public prosecutor’s office, and investigations have been initiated.

The Interior Ministry pointed out that, during ongoing investigations, no further details on the exact procedure or specific processes could be disclosed. Security experts are currently conducting comprehensive examinations, particularly concerning attack vectors. The cleanup of the affected systems is ongoing, which may lead to temporary restrictions in electronic accessibility of the BMI—particularly regarding the mentioned external email communication. Even police press releases could not be sent by email on Saturday.

Parallels to state-sponsored hacker attacks

As for who might be behind the attack, there was initially no information. However, due to the professionalism of the hackers, their methods, and the target of the attack, many parallels can be drawn to hacker attacks carried out by state actors in recent months, according to the Interior Ministry. In early 2020, the Foreign Ministry was the target of a serious cyberattack that could only be stopped after weeks.

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