Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani ended up at the center of an attempted hacker dossier which also involved magistrates and police leaders. The private data of the deputy prime minister and his family have been made public on the dark web, in a new face of the hybrid war that is targeting Italy and the whole of Europe.
"The pro-Russian threats and the bounty to obtain information on my family? We have been following the story for two days. Since January 1st we have revolutionized the ministry with a general management and a cyber operations room active 24 hours a day connected with the National Cybersecurity Agency. I already have the highest level of security, the attention is maximum", commented Tajani in an interview with Il Giornale. Meanwhile, the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, has called a meeting of the National Committee for Public Order and Security for Tuesday 10 November at the Interior Ministry. At the center of the meeting was the examination of the risks to public safety connected to cyber attacks and the cyber threat.
“Attacks want to influence the vote”
"Today the threat raises the level, touching personal affections. But our cyber defenses are operational and the response is ready for any intrusion attempt", continues the deputy prime minister and foreign minister after being targeted by hacker attacks which are hypothesized to be of a pro-Russian nature. Do you intend to summon the Moscow ambassador? "As long as there is no formal evidence, we must move with caution together with the intelligence and the postal police. But the nature of the hybrid war is clear: we are faced with opaque networks that carry out illicit operations. In view of the next electoral deadlines there will be a systematic attempt to influence public opinion and divide Europeans through disinformation", for this reason "maximum vigilance is needed, it is a problem that we must deal with".
The topic also at the G7
Tajani confirms that he will also raise the topic "at the G7 Foreign Affairs: I have already written to my French counterpart. The Russians will not wage a traditional war with us: the threat is 360 degrees and must be addressed through collective awareness". The head of the Farnesina explains: "Investing in security does not mean being warmongers. The left falls into a typical contradiction: it asks for security and protection of services, but then protests every time it has to spend on defense and cyber protection". As for the fake photo published, and then removed, by the president of the Democratic Party Bonaccini, "I launched an appeal to avoid the use of artificial intelligence in the electoral campaign. Using it to manipulate reality and demonstrate a false thesis fuels disinformation. Satire is fine, but ridiculing and delegitimizing those who represent the country in the world is a serious act", concludes the minister.
What happened
Those responsible for the cyber attack were identified as the pro-Russian hackers of the NoName057(16) network, hunting for the sensitive data of several people considered enemies of the Russian Federation, so much so that - already two weeks ago - they placed a "bounty" on the personal information linked to the Foreign Minister himself, but also on the Rome Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi, the head of the Postal Police Ivano Gabrielli and Paolo Tassan-Zanin, mayor of Aviano (Pordenone), home to an American military base. Hackers offer money in exchange for telephone numbers, emails and various contacts of their "wanted" people, publishing, as for Tajani, profiles with profiles already accompanied by CVs, public data, private telephone numbers, emails and home addresses. The Capitoline magistrates are investigating the case while the data already published remains online for now, given that at the moment it is technically impossible to remove it from the dark web. In the lists published by Noname there are not only Italians, but eighteen people in total. Prominent personalities abroad include Michael Schmid, president of Eurojust, Benjamin Krause, magistrate of the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office, Holger Münch, head of the German criminal police and Michael Alexander Martens, investigative journalist wanted by Moscow. The contents appeared in an area of the dark web accessible through the Tor network, a system that guarantees a high level of anonymity and which is also used for illicit activities.
