Twelve Norwegian ministries at once suffered from a large-scale cyber attack

Norwegian government reported today about a large-scale cyber attack that affected 12 different ministries of the country at once. Primary access to the internal networks of the government was recorded on July 12, and today the responsible persons announced the elimination of the vulnerability, thanks to which this access became possible.

“We have discovered a hitherto unknown vulnerability in the software of one of our vendors. It was operated by unknown intruders. This vulnerability has now been fixed,” said Eric Hope, head of the government agency responsible for providing services to ministries, at a press conference.

“It is too early to say anything about who is behind this and what the consequences of the attack are. Our own investigation, as well as the police investigation, will be able to provide more answers,” Hope added.

The attack itself was reportedly identified through “unusual” traffic on the provider’s platform, but the name of the provider itself was not mentioned. The prime minister’s office, as well as the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and justice, were not affected because they use a different IT platform.

Norway is the largest gas supplier in Europe after the decline in Russian gas supplies, as well as the largest oil exporter in Western Europe.

The public sector in Norway has been subject to cyberattacks in the past, including denial-of-service or DDoS. The last one happened at the end of June 2022.

Norway’s cybersecurity agency previously reported that the number of cyber attacks on the country tripled between 2019 and 2021. At the same time, the number of serious incidents in 2022 was at the same level as in 2021.