A spokesman for the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) said on Thursday Romania had been the target of some 38,000 cyber-attacks on Aug. 12-13.
Sorin Sava said the attacks were “alerts that materialised after receiving e-mail messages with ransomware-type malicious attachments, which means data encryption followed by the demand for ransoms. The SRI, in its capacity of the national authority on cyber-intelligence is inquiring into all the cyber-attacks targeting the critical infrastructures, particularly those of a national and strategic interest and is supplying the beneficiaries the information required to prevent, stop and restrain the consequences of such cyber-aggression”.
Not only Romania is the target of such attacks, but other states are as well, including ones in the Euro-Atlantic area, Sava told Digi 24 news channel.
“Speaking strictly of Romania, it is a target of cyber-attacks from hostile entities. Be they state- or non-state players, the fact is confirmed by the thousand daily alerts that are received by the sensors set up at the national critical infrastructures in Romania and not only there. We are speaking of thousands of daily attacks”, the intelligence official added.
As for what the attackers aim at, Sava explained there are two situations, depending on who they are.
“If we speak of a state player, they could aim to exfiltrate strategic intelligence about a certain state, about certain institutions of that state, briefly, we speak of cyber-espionage. If we speak of the cyber-criminals who wish or seek financial gains, things are simpler here. (…) Any cyber-infrastructure, be it private or governmental, if affected can inflict major damages both to the citizens and the state or private entities”, the SRI official underscored.