Anssi, the state cyber-firefighter, will provide technical support to Montenegro, Jean-Noël Barrot announced yesterday, through a mission of detection, analysis and remediation. “Solidarity in Europe does not waver in the face of the cyber threat”, added on twitter the Minister Delegate in charge of the digital transition and telecommunications.
The French announcement follows a call from the Montenegrin government for international assistance. Montenegro also welcomed American and British assistance. This Balkan country of 620,000 inhabitants has been grappling with a major cyberattack for several days judged “extremely powerful and well organized” whose technical details remain unknown for the moment.
Attacks that began on August 20
According Marash Dukaj, the Minister of Public Service, Montenegro has been the victim of computer attacks since August 20. But the crisis however visibly accelerated in the middle of last week, with a new series of attacks in the evening of Thursday August 25 targeting the State’s information systems, endangering its critical infrastructures.
The US Embassy in Montenegro has thus warned of possible disruptions in public services, transport and telecommunications. Nevertheless, Marash Dukaj also wanted to be reassuring. Thus, defensive measures would have been taken in time. And although digital services have been deactivated for security reasons – public administration sites thus seem offline – the data of citizens and businesses would not be at risk.
Beyond the ongoing remediation operations, the Ministry of the Public Service called on the population to be even more vigilant. He posted on twitter ten recommendations digital hygiene, such as not using an operating system that is no longer updated, protecting yourself with an antivirus or even setting up complex passwords.
Suspicions against Russia
According to local media, the Montenegrin National Security Agency believes that these computer attacks were committed by several Russian services. If the government remained cautious on the issue of attribution, Defense Minister Rasko Konjevic was more affirmative, believing that there were enough elements to suspect Russia.
A member of NATO since 2017, Montenegro also wants to join the European Union. Movements that greatly displeased in Russia, a country once very close to Montenegro. Podgorica, which had aligned itself with the sanctions of the European Union following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, had thus been placed in March 2022 in the list of unfriendly countries by Moscow.