The Belgian Centre for Cyber-security, (known as the CCSB), did not detect any Russian cyberattacks against Belgium. This is featured on Thursday in De Tijd. Last week, the Head of Dutch intelligence confirmed in a televised interview that public services and companies were targeted by “hundreds” of cyberattacks coming from Russia and China during the last six months. Miguel De Bruycker, the Head of the CCSB reacted, “We are not observing the same phenomenon in Belgium.”
Mr De Bruycker indicated, “There are three pathways at play here: either we are not detecting Russia, or the attacks, the victims of which have been the Netherlands, have not targeted Belgium. The third possibility is that Dutch intelligence services have been handling attacks in a different way.”
The Head of Dutch intelligence warned against disclosing government reports or confidential discussions within Dutch government services.
However, De Tijd notes that Belgium diplomacy was victim of a Russian cyberattack during the summer of 2014. This was probably with the aim of copying Belgian documents on the Ukraine crisis.
Mr De Bruycker, confirmed the information, but stated that the CCSB has since monitored the attacks on a daily basis.
It emerges from this monitoring that federal authorities are increasingly subject to attempted cyberattacks. Within the Foreign Affairs Ministry - which is far from being the most targeted - there are less than 4,000 alerts per month, the majority of which are automatically detected.
Around a dozen incidents are subject to investigation every month. However, up to now, none of these attempts have succeeded.
The Brussels Times
