Hackers pwn EC on eve of Libya, nukes conference

The European Commission was hacked into yesterday just hours before a summit of EU leaders debating the military campaign in Libya, the Euro debt crisis and nuclear safety.

An EC spokesman said its staff were warned that remote access to emails was cut. And they confirmed that pages from European Union websites, notably those from the European External Action Service that handled diplomatic relations for its 27 states around the world, were also down.

Commission spokesman Antony Gravili was unable to say whether police were alerted; an "in-house security team" was probing the breach, he said.

He blamed the "serious attack" on malware: “I have no information at all linking the attack to the summit, we don't only suffer attacks at these times”.

Rik Ferguson, director of security research and communications at Trend Micro, said that details on the nature, extent and consequences of the incident were scant but the timing and target were reminiscent of the attack against the French finance ministry two weeks ago, which reportedly targeted information relating to the G20 summit.

He said that revealing this attack was the right thing to do in light of recent cyber espionage attempts. “Until an investigation takes place it is wise not to release any information as it may be subject to change and also because it will open the doors up to further attacks by revealing their vulnerabilities,” he said.

“These are targeted attacks looking for confidential information, while with the RSA SecurID attack they were looking for intellectual property. Until we know more about what was targeted it is difficult to figure out the motive. It is also difficult to say if this was successful, as nothing has been released, we know that this was a detailed attack and they are investigating but that does not mean that it was successful.

“Nevertheless, Aurora, Night Dragon, Stuxnet and the attacks on the G20 and EU summits graphically illustrate the new reality. Cyber espionage, just like cyber crime is more simple to perpetrate, more difficult to spot and carries much less risk than the more traditional methods. This is the new front line.”

This article originally appeared at scmagazineuk.com