Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Georg Farago said the ministry was a recent victim from an organized
cyber attack launched by professional criminals looking to compromise
data.
"Unknown perpetrators used
special software in this attack to reach the ministry's IT
infrastructure and to acquire specific information," according
to a public statement issued by the Swiss Foreign Ministry. "In
concrete terms, foreign ministry staff cannot use the internet for
the time being but can use the internal network," Farago
noted.
Swiss security experts are now attempting to identify
where the attack originated from, and whether or not any information
has been taken.
In an another isolated incident, the
Swiss Finance Ministry and Interior Ministry computer network endured
problems at the end of last week -- it's unknown if these problems
are related.
There is growing concern of organized cyber
attacks -- sometimes government-led by China and North Korea -- aimed
against western governments and financial institutions. Rogue
hacker groups have also began working as hackers-for-hire, willing to
target foreign-based targets, with the U.S. and other western nations
unable to do much.
Switzerland routinely is host to high-level
negotiations among nations, with nuclear program discussions between
the United States, Iran, Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany.
