Brno, Jan 5 (CTK) – The Czech cyber and information security office (NUKIB) seated in Brno will operate in an emergency mode during the January 12-13 presidential election, with up to 25 experts ready to ward off any cyber attack, which may happen, NUKIB spokesman Radek Holy told CTK yesterday.
A hacker attack in the wake of the October general election caused drop-outs of the election websites of the Czech Statistical Office (CSU). It is being investigated by the police.
NUKIB has been operating since the summer of 2017 with the aim of providing support in case of cyber attacks.
“Cooperation with the Czech Statistical Office has been established since the previous election. We are preparing jointly that another similar incident could happen during the forthcoming election. That somebody may attempt something or may have bad intentions,” Holy said.
NUKIB’s experts and analysts will be on alert and connected with the CSU, the Foreign Affairs and the Interior Ministry, just like during the October election.
If the CSU or any of its partners report anything nonstandard, the office will assist them in resolving the problem.
“We anticipate the possible types of attacks. We know about these possibilities from our national partners and from those abroad, too. The attacker is always a step or two ahead though. We must first identify that an attack is happening, analyse it and only then we are able to decide on the steps to tackle it,” he said.
The police are still investigating the hacker attack that was registered after polling stations closed following the general election on October 21, which temporarily made the CSU’s website inaccessible to the public. It did not impact the election results in any way however.
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