Damage From Cyber Attack on Sweden May Take Weeks to Recover

Niclas Rolander
·1 min read
7

(Bloomberg) -- Computer systems of Swedish government agencies made inoperable by an attack on a Tietoevry Oyj data center may be down for weeks, the country’s civil defense minister said.

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The ransomware attack carried out during the weekend by a group known as Akira has crippled payroll processing at a large number of institutions, and caused additional problems at hospitals, cinemas and other businesses. At a news conference on Friday, Carl-Oskar Bohlin said 178 reports have been filed on potential personal data breaches since Saturday.

“We are dealing with a very serious incident, and we don’t know the full extent of it yet,” he said. “The government views the situation very seriously, not least against the backdrop of the grave security policy situation that Sweden is in.”

As Sweden is on the cusp of joining NATO after gaining Turkey’s approval this week, officials have warned that the Nordic country could be subject to so-called hybrid attacks, including cyber crime. Neighboring Finland, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last year, has said a recent string of incidents where asylum seekers have crossed its border is an example of such an hybrid operation by Russia.

Bohlin, who earlier this month warned that Swedes must be prepared for the risk of military conflict on its territory, declined to comment on the origin of the attack.

“We are at early stages, so I can’t speculate, but these types of attacks are typically driven either by an economic motive where ransom is demanded, or by a political motive where a state actor may be behind it,” he said. “We currently don’t know which of these applies to this attack.”

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