RIGA, June 26 (Xinhua) -- A recent incident in which hackers managed to access IT systems of Latvia's state-owned company Latvijas Valsts Mezi (LVM) revealed the relative vulnerability of the country's strategic infrastructure, Smart Administration and Regional Development Minister Edgars Tavars said Friday.
The cybersecurity breach in LVM has caused particular concerns because the company has been entrusted with developing an electoral IT platform for Latvia's parliamentary elections, which are scheduled to take place this fall.
In an interview with the TV3 channel on Friday, Tavars called on all state institutions to identify cybersecurity flaws in their own systems and learn a lession from the LVM incident. The minister believes, though, that in general, Latvian IT specialists are good enough to prevent similar incidents from repeating in the future.
Tavars said that the electronic voter register, on which LVM has been working, was completed before the incident and was not at risk. In general, "we are definitely not ringing alarm bells about the elections," the minister said.
LVM discovered the cybersecurity breach of its IT systems last weekend. In response, the company took all its external IT systems offline and also shut down some internal communication systems.
A foreign ransomware group, which has carried out similar attacks against companies and government agencies in other countries, has claimed responsibility on the cyberattack on LVM.
