IT SYSTEMS OF SWEDISH ARMED FORCES SHUT DOWN DUE TO CYBER ATTACK

The Swedish Defense Ministry has been forced to shut down its IT systems due to an extensive hacker attack.

Photo: Flickr / John Scott Rafoss

IT systems, used by the Swedish Armed Forces, were recently exposed to an extensive hacker attack, the Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday. Reportedly, an unprecedented decision to shut down the systems, providing operation of computer networks of the Swedish Defense Ministry, was taken at the top-level.

The General Staff of the kingdom’s Armed Forces reported that the main cyber attack targeted the Caxcis IT system, which was virtually made inoperative and could not operate normally for a few hours. According to the analytical department of the Swedish General Staff, the cyber attack was carried out in order to obtain access to classified information, as well as to turn computers, belonging to the Swedish Defense Department into the so-called ‘zombie computers’, which could be used in further attacks on other computer systems.

At the same time, the kingdom’s Defense Ministry said that for the moment, they do not have a full range of possibilities for 100% protection against cyber attacks.

Swedish journalists asked the press service of the Defense Department to disclose whether there is any data about a source of the cyber attack. Representatives of the Swedish Defense Ministry refused to talk about countries and people, who were behind the hacker attack. However, some Swedish media outlets and especially users of social networks, who are under the influence of US media’s fake news, announced that is obviously that it was work of Russia.

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