Austria: Carinthia became victim of cyberattack

The provincial administration of Carinthia has fallen victim to a large-scale cyberattack. As a result, the Austrian state had to close many authorities. Now they are working meticulously to find out who might have been behind the attack.

Serious repercussions

When it comes to a cyberattack on this scale, the first thing people usually do is pull the emergency brake. This means that the very first thing to do is to shut down the relevant data stores. This is what happened in Carinthia. After it became known only yesterday that there had been an attack on the official systems, the offices initially shut down their activities. Far-reaching effects on citizen services and other services close to the population must probably still be expected today.

This was communicated by Gerd Kurath, press spokesman of the provincial office directorate of Carinthia. But what exactly happened? According to the spokesman, the server structures of the authorities were attacked with a virus. It is not yet known exactly what kind of virus it is. It is hoped that the meticulous work that cybersecurity experts have now begun will provide clarification. To be on the safe side, they also shut down servers without further ado to prevent follow-up attacks.

A large-scale attack

Of course, the effects are now clearly felt. For example, in addition to the state administration, the state audit office and even the state’s administrative court were temporarily taken offline. This initially caused astonishment among many citizens. After all, things that were taken for granted, such as accessibility by telephone, also fell away with the shutdown. Now, many of the facilities are in emergency operation for the time being. In order to return this situation to normal as quickly as possible, the police are working at full speed to clarify the cyberattack. Experts in IT crime began their work in the early hours of May 24. There was probably already reason for a first sigh of relief.

After all, as of now, it is assumed that the attackers did not steal any data. However, we are not really sure about this yet. There is simply too little information available. In general, there are still many question marks surrounding the issues. Among other things, the fact that no attackers have claimed responsibility and no demands have been made is very surprising. Possibly, this can be interpreted to mean that there is no monetary background behind the attack, but rather a political one. After all, public authorities of EU members have recently become increasingly frequent victims of cyberattacks.

Citizens hope for improvement soon

Currently, especially the residents of the state are suffering from the consequences of the cyberattack. After all, it is currently impossible to apply for essential documents. Fortunately, the authority relies on separate server structures for basic services. Therefore, the health sector has not been affected. Contact tracing to combat the corona pandemic was also fortunately unaffected.