KDH Wants Government to Inform Public and Parliament about Russian Cyber Attacks

Bratislava, 22 July (TASR) - The opposition Christian Democrats (KDH) have called on the government to promptly and transparently inform the public and Parliament about cyber operations carried out by Russian hackers against Slovakia, Mario Marcinek from KDH's communications department has informed TASR. "The European Union has clearly named the activities of the Russian intelligence services, listed Slovakia among the countries attacked and imposed sanctions on the persons and entities responsible. The Slovak government cannot therefore pretend that this is a marginal or unclear incident," said MP Branislav Skripek (KDH), who is also a member of the parliamentary European affairs committee. According to Skripek, Foreign Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar (Smer-SD) must explain what information is available to the government, when it learnt about the attacks and what diplomatic response it's prepared. KDH stressed that it has the right to know the basic scope of the incidents, their potential consequences and the measures that the state has taken to protect its systems and citizens. "We need to know whether sensitive information has been compromised, whether the state detected the attacks in time and whether it's done its utmost to prevent further intrusions," said MP Frantisek Majersky (KDH), a member of the special parliamentary committee to supervise the activities of the Slovak Intelligence Service. The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, MP Veronika Remisova ('Slovakia' party, For the People) and the extra-parliamentary Democrats on Tuesday (21 July) called on Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to convene the Security Council over Russia's cyber activities in Slovakia. At the same time, they called on Blanar to summon the Russian ambassador and demand an explanation. House Chair Richard Rasi (Voice-SD) said on Tuesday that he wasn't aware of any official request to convene a special House session over cyber activities by the Russia. The Foreign Affairs Ministry told TASR that it takes the malicious cyber activities associated with the 16th Centre of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) extremely seriously. The targets of the attacks were reportedly critical infrastructure, the energy sector and the defence industry. ko/df