hackers
May 26, 2021

Attack on the Belgian Foreign Office

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office is investigating a large-scale cyberattack on the Interior Ministry, which could be carried out with "espionage goals."


"As part of its investigation, the Federal Prosecutor's Office has been conducting forensic examinations on computers at several ministries and an intelligence service of the Interior Ministry in a bid to determine the exact nature of the cyber attack," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.


The National Cyber Defence Center at the ministry was established in 2014 to deal with critical incidents and to ensure its IT security.
The cyber-attacks started on Saturday and were identified on Monday morning by IT technicians in the ministry.


On Monday, the cyber-attackers seized the email account of a vice-minister in charge of the Special Intervention Unit, which focuses on major security threats.
"One of the hackers succeeded in obtaining access to the email account of a vice-minister, and tried to access it with the aim of giving the attackers access to the official email account of the minister," the Federal Prosecutor's Office said.
The investigation has also revealed that the hackers used credentials leaked in December from the Belgium-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.
Among other things, the investigators have found that the same database was used in the attacks on Belgian Justice Ministry and the federal police.
Justice Minister Koen Geens has said that the attackers tried to breach several targets, including his own email account.


"What is disturbing is that the hackers managed to successfully compromise a large number of email accounts of Belgian civil servants," Geens said.
Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon has said that "we suspect that it was a deliberate action."
"It is a serious attack, the police was involved in the investigation.
Police noticed the breach on Saturday afternoon and contacted the state.