Austria's Foreign Ministry faces cyberattack
January 5, 2020
The Austrian Foreign Ministry has said it was dealing with a "serious cyberattack," and suggested another country could be to blame.
"Due to the gravity and nature of the attack, it cannot be excluded that it is a targeted attack by a state actor," it said in a joint statement with the Interior Ministry on Saturday, adding that the computerized offensive was continuing.
Read more: Austria's new government sets goal to be carbon neutral by 2040
The statement said that "in the past, other European countries have been the target of similar attacks."
Procedures had been put in place as an immediate response and a "coordination committee" had been created, but no further details were given.
A spokesman for the Austrian Foreign Ministry told the AFP news agency that experts said the attack could last several days.
In 2019, the European Union set up measures to punish those outside the bloc who launched attacks of this nature targeting hospitals and financial institutions, or those who interfered with elections.
The revelations regarding the cyberattacks emerged on the same day the Greens agreed to a coalition with the country's conservatives, the People's Party, at a congress in Salzburg, overcoming the last obstacle to the unprecedented alliance.
jsi/cmk (dpa, AFP)
Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.