OSLO: Norway's NSM cybersecurity agency said on Oct 27 that the number of "successful" cyberattacks against organisations in the country had tripled in a year, in its first public evaluation of such risks.
Its report follows warnings from several European countries alleging that Russia is behind a stepped-up campaign of hybrid warfare, including cyberattacks, in relation to the war in Ukraine.
The NSM – the National Security Authority – did not identify any actors behind the attacks.
"Over the past year, we have observed a tripling of the number of successful cyber operations against Norwegian organisations," NSM director Arne Christian Haugstoyl told a news conference.
"Several of them had serious consequences and continue to present a risk to national security," he said.
For instance, in spring a municipality in Oslo's suburbs, Lorenskog, had a large amount of data stolen and offered for sale on the dark web after a cyberattack.
Artificial intelligence (AI) was providing perpetrators with a powerful new tool to carry out such operations, Haugstoyl said.
"The use of AI allows data to be exploited and misappropriated at a professional level, on a scale and in greater ways than before," he said.
The NSM has evaluated the level of cyber risk to the country as "heightened", ranked second on a five-point scale. – AFP
