ABOUT six months after the international GLOBSEC security conference took place in Bratislava, it was revealed that it had been targeted by hackers.
The hack targeted emails that seemed to be sent by conference organisers. By opening the attachment, recipients let the hackers enter their computers, the Sme daily reported in its October 23 issue.
The conference was attended , for example, by then NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, prime ministers of the Visegrad Four countries (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary), military officials and security analysts.
IT security company Eset says that most of the victims are from Poland and Ukraine, and from big companies and state institutions, Sme wrote.
According to the daily, the analyses showed that the attack was part of long-lasting hacker campaign which has been targeting NATO, the European and Ukrainian offices, as well as the telecommunication and energy sectors since 2009. The methods and tools indicate that the attacks may be made from Russia, as reported by Sme.
“We cannot say whether there was an increased number of concrete attacks during GLOBSEC,” said Zuzana Hošalová of Eset, as quoted by Sme. “What we can certainly say is that GLOBSEC was misused for the attack and that the targets could be its participants.”
Hošalová added that Eset found most victims in Ukraine and Poland and it concerned state institutions and big companies, “therefore we assume it was a targeted attack,” she told Sme.
Together with Finnish company F-Secure, Eset revealed some dubious activities already in September.
The Foreign and Defence Ministries told Sme that they have not recorded any attempt to infiltrate their information systems. The Government Office did not answer Sme and Ivan Rudolf, media representative of GLOBSEC, said that conference organisers have not received any feedback from participants.
