Moldova suspects state actor behind major cyberattack, PM tells Euronews

Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan has told Euronews that a state actor is suspected of being behind a wave of cyberattacks on the country's government databases, although he stopped short of naming any suspects.

Tofan joined the Euronews Enlargement Summit by video link after cancelling his trip to Brussels because of the ongoing attacks on government IT systems.

Hackers breached government databases, gaining access to the personal identification numbers of Moldovan citizens.

"Civic registrations have been under attack, and about 750,000 data sets about two individuals have been extracted from databases," Tofan said.

He added that authorities had received early warnings of the attacks and suspected a foreign state was responsible.

"We suspect the state actor to be behind it, and seeing what's happening in Europe, this will remain on the agenda of the European countries," he said. "At this point, you could only guess. But I don't think the list of suspects is very long."

Europe has recently been targeted by frequent hacking attacks, some of which are suspected to be linked to Russia.

This week, seven countries reported cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems. The emergency alert applications in Ukraine and Russia have also been compromised and used to send out false warnings.

Moldova also experienced a surge in alleged Russian interference during its parliamentary election campaign last year.