Podgorica, (MINA) – Last year, Montenegrin citizens reported 490 cyber incidents to the Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT), most of the reports referring to fake campaigns by companies on social media, Head of CIRT Dejan Arsenijevic has said.
“We registered several incidents of computers infected with ‘WannaCry’ ransomware when attackers demanded ransom in cryptocurrency in order to unlock the date on the infected computers,” Arsenijevic told Mina.
This, he explains, is one of the most dangerous ransomware, which infected over 170,000 computers worldwide in just two days when it first appeared in 2017.
“In addition, we noted a large number of attacks associated with hacker groups Fancy Bear, Sandworm, Strontium, CyberCaliphate, BlackEnergy Actors and similar,” he said.
According to the Head of CIRT, there was also a notable rise in the number of DDos attacks on the network of state authorities and public administration services.
Referring to citizens’ reports, he said that 490 incidents were reported to CIRT until 1 December last year.
“This included 13 attacks on websites and information systems, 68 Internet frauds, 39 incidents of social media profile abuse, 333 malwares and 37 other incidents (harassment and blackmail through social media, identity theft, etc.),” Arsenijevic explained.
Asked what Montenegro has done to improve the level of cyber security, he argues that, through new legislation and strategic documents, Montenegro has been following the key standards, guidelines and recommendations of the European Union and NATO in terms of building capacities in this area.
Arsenijevic claims that with the establishment of the Council of Information Security a core national body has been set up, which advises the Government on all relevant issues in this area.
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