FM Stier: No strategic piece of information compromised in cyber-attack

(Hina) - Foreign Minister Davor Ivo Stier said on Saturday that no strategic piece of information was compromised in a cyber-attack on the ministry's computer network in October

(Hina) - Foreign Minister Davor Ivo Stier said on Saturday that no strategic piece of information was compromised in a cyber-attack on the ministry's computer network in October, allowing for the possibility that the attack came from the east, but adding that it was not related to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's visit to Ukraine because it happened before it.

"According to the report I received, no strategic piece of information was compromised. The target of the attack was information relating to the foreign and security policy in the context of Euro-Atlantic organisations, but no strategic piece of information was compromised," Stier told reporters.

He said the ministry and the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) would define a new cooperation model to upgrade classified data protection.

He confirmed media speculation that, according to available information, the cyber-attack might have come from the east. "Based on what we have received, there are clues that the attack came from the east, but SOA is working on this information. This has happened in other parts of Europe too."

Stier reiterated that the attack occurred during the term of his predecessor Miro Kovač and that it had nothing to do with Plenković's recent visit to Ukraine. He refuted Jutarnji List daily's claim that everything happened over the past month.

"That's incorrect," he said, wondering why the paper wanted to manipulate with the public. "If the intention was to show that this was a response to the policy of the new government, I must say the attacks didn't happen during the prime minister's visit to Ukraine. They occurred before that and before Plenković became prime minister."

Stier said the government had its foreign policy and that it insisted on principles and on such a foreign policy, but that it was important to refute the misinformation that the cyber-attack was a response to a move by the Andrej Plenković cabinet.

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