Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Cyber Attack Hit European Parliament

The European Parliament's computer network has been breached by a cyber attack. The attack was similar to the one that was launched against the European Commission last week. Both the cyber attacks were sophisticated and were not the work of any script kiddy.

As a precautionary measure, the employees of Parliament were directed to change their login information for the body’s network. Similar instructions were also issued to EC workers when their computers were breached. Even the remote access has been temporarily disabled.

The European Council confirmed it had been hit last week ahead of a significant summit in Brussels. The External Action Service, which effectively acts as the EU’s foreign ministry, was also hit.

Cyber Crimes fight is hampered by lack of International Coordination and Harmonised International Standards, opines Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi based law firm Perry4Law and leading techno legal expert of India. For instance, India is not a Signatory to International Cyber Crime Treaty of European Union, informs Dalal. This gives lots of room for International Cyber Attacks, Cyber Terrorism and Cyber Espionage by Rouge Nations, says Dalal.

Meanwhile, information technology services of European Parliament are working really hard to investigate the source of cyber attacks and to put in place effective cyber security measures.