The Greek Ministry of Education revealed on Tuesday that it was the target of a cyberattack, described as the most extensive in the country’s history, which aimed to disable a central platform for secondary education exams.
Denial of service (DDoS) attacks, aimed at overloading the platform, occurred for the second day in a row today, the Greek Ministry of Education reported.
The attack involved computers in 114 countries, causing outages and delays in high school exams, but failed to bring the system to a standstill, the same source added.
The cyberattacks are already the subject of a judicial investigation, determined by a Supreme Court prosecutor who will be assisted by the police’s cybercrime division.
“It is the most significant attack ever perpetrated against a public or government organization in Greece,” the Education Ministry stressed, describing the incidents on Monday and Tuesday as “large-scale and long-lasting.”
Secondary school end-of-year exams in Greece are taken using an ‘online’ platform known as Subject Bank, designed to set a uniform standard across the country.
The disruptions have left students waiting in classrooms for hours for exams to start and sparked a political standoff after an inconclusive general election earlier this month.
The New Democracy party won 40.8% of the vote, double that of its main opponent, the left-wing Syriza party of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (2015-2019), which suffered a severe setback.
But that result did not allow him to obtain an absolute majority, while he ruled out forming a coalition, which led to the calling of new elections for June 25.
“All we have so far is an arrogant abdication of responsibility by the New Democracy government, which for four years has failed to take adequate digital protection measures to protect the Subject Bank platform and ensure that school exams are run smoothly,” Popi said. Tsananidou, spokesman for Syriza (left).
Acting Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas, in office until the election of a new government, today chaired a meeting on the attacks, which “were highly intense and motivational,” according to a press release from his office that made no reference to a possible culprit.
Ioannis Sarmas said, quoted in the statement, that the attacks were “repelled efficiently” and that the Greek authorities, if necessary, “will mobilize whatever is necessary to deal with cyberattacks in the immediate future.”
Source: TSF
