News site: Hackers accessed Foreign Ministry email data over period of months

Hackers broke into email accounts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and downloaded data over a period of several months, Neovlivni.cz reported on Tuesday. Among the accounts hacked were those of the minister of foreign affairs, Lubomír Zaorálek, and his deputies, the investigative news website said. The news site Lidovky.cz quoted Mr. Zaorálek as saying it was a very sophisticated attack; he said an “unknown state” was evidently behind the cyberhacks, which were of similar nature to those carried out against the Democratic National Convention in the US. Neovlivni.cz quoted security sources as saying thousands of pieces of data – including classified information – had been gradually downloaded from the email accounts. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied that the stolen materials included secret information, adding that the extent of the hacking had not yet been ascertained. Neovlivni.cz said the situation was all the more serious as it also concerned data concerning allies of the Czech Republic.

Author: Ian Willoughby