– Evenly over all services up and running – VG

Updated less than 30 minutes ago

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NSM director Sofie Nystrøm meets the press on Wednesday after several Norwegian companies have been exposed to hacker attacks.

– As of now, the situation is still somewhat unclear, we see that some websites are slow but open. And a few have not set up their website. But evenly, all services are up and running, says Nystrøm to VG.

The attacks are aimed at a number of large Norwegian companies, which offer important services.

– They have partly succeeded in bringing down a number of important services in shorter periods, says Nystrøm.

NSM has seen similar attacks in other countries, but none of these have had long-term consequences.

Efforts are now being made to find out whether the attack can be linked to any countries, and which countries.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre says that everything indicates that the hacker attack on Norway comes from a criminal group.

– It is a well-known group that has identified itself. That the attack comes from a Russian environment that I would call a criminal environment, it all indicates, the Prime Minister told VG on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.

– Can there be a group that coordinates with the Russian authorities?

– It will not speculate. The most important thing is that we are able to handle it, and that we can give back the reassurance to people that this is closely monitored, and that services that are important to many work as they should, says Støre.

Alert hacker attack

The Russian hacker group Killnet has announced that they will carry out a hacker attack on Norway, they report on Telegram.

The hacker group has published a picture of Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt with what looks like a Maleficent mask, from the Disney movie of the same name.

Along with the picture is the text:

– Good morning Norway! Everyone ready to attack!

«Mrs. Error », they refer to Norway’s Foreign Minister as.

Killnet is a well-known pro-Russian player that has been behind a number of computer attacks in support of the invasion of Ukraine.

According to NSM, they have used the image of the foreign minister to create awareness about the attack.

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On Wednesday morning, BankID and the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority’s website are down.

BankID’s website only states “The service is unavailable”, ie that the services are not available. There is also instability in Altinn.

NAV is also exposed to the cyber attack. This is confirmed by IT director in NAV, Vegar Storstad.

The hacker group also threatens NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and his family in a message on Telegram.

– I condemn that attack. It is an attack, says Støre to NTB.

– Cyber ​​attacks are part of the modern threat picture. We are not unprepared for this, so we have authorities who follow it closely, and who are able to get an overview and consider how to defend themselves. As far as I am informed this afternoon, this attack has not done any significant damage, he says.

Killnet claims on Telegram to have a copy of Jens Stoltenberg’s passport. This is false and not a copy of Stoltenberg’s passport, a source in NATO informs NTB.

– Low-scale crisis

Earlier this year, NSM asked Norwegian companies to be vigilant. This is repeated by NSM director Sofie Nystrøm on Wednesday.

– Norwegian companies must protect themselves and have crisis management and contingency plans to handle such low-scale crises, Nystrøm says when asked by NRK.

She says that the large Norwegian companies are well prepared for such incidents. But small and medium-sized businesses are more vulnerable.

NSM went out in February and asked companies to have a low threshold for notifying the authorities of suspicious conditions.

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