Norwegian Intelligence Chief Warns on Foreign Cyber Attacks and Influence Operations

The chief of the Norwegian Intelligence Service said that the NIS has taken on a key role in preventing foreign forces from being able to try to influence the Parliament election in the fall, following the revelations about the fact that Russia wanted to influence the election battle in the United States.

Morten Haga Lunde said that "there is a project in progress to assess how we can protect ourselves against attacks on the Norwegian social model up until the election in the fall. I am extremely concerned about how information operations are trying to create false images in social media in order to change the form of government in Europe and trying to take control of servers and data systems".

According to the interview released from Lunde to the Norwegian website VG Nett "cyber attacks are now regarded as acts of war and they legitimate countermeasures. The society may be backed into a corner if we do not have digital border control".

Lunde reported that the electricity supply has been taken down in Ukraine via cyber attacks.

He points out how an enemy player may give rise to chaos just with as straightforward a step as taking control of the traffic lights in Oslo, not to mention what will happen if air traffic control is manipulated.

New Cyber Threat Center Created in Ukraine with U.S. assistance

A new cyber threat center is being created in Ukraine with U.S. assistance, UNIAN News Agency reported.

This was announced by the deputy defence minister of Ukraine and the Defense Ministry's chief of staff, Col-Gen Oleksandr Dublyan, at today's briefing in Kyiv.

"We have started creating a center to deal with cyber security threats, which is receiving assistance from the US government," Dublyan said.

In addition, the deputy minister noted that "measures are being taken to introduce data protection means in the telecommunications systems of the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces with account of the standards of foreign countries".

Also, according to Dublyan, a blueprint for cyber defence in Ukraine has been drafted, which has been agreed with representatives of the US European Command and the National Security Authority of the Czech Republic. Currently, this document is being reviewed by a parliament committee and the National Security and Defense Council.

He noted that the center was carrying out measures to create an effective system for operational and command control, communications, intelligence and surveillance, and work was being done to switch the field component of the defence forces communication system to digital means meeting NATO protection standards.