New York - Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the foreign ministries of the Czech Republic, Portugal, Bulgaria, Hungary and Latvia, reported The New York Times. The media outlet quoted a report by FireEye, a US computer security outfit, which says that the attacks started in 2010 and are ongoing and "highly selective".
The daily wrote that the intruders had sent emails claiming to link to naked photos of Carla Bruni, the wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But by clicking on the link, unwitting foreign ministry officials instead allowed the hackers to obtain access to their computers. Other emails claimed to contain information about alleged US military operations in Syria.
"We have seen this news story, but we do not comment on this kind of reports. I can only say that our IT systems does a lot to prevent this kind of attacks. But this is really just a news story and we will not comment on that," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Johana Grohova told Aktualne.cz.
Reuters reported that the attacks had taken place ahead of the G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg, Russia, this September, which focused on the Syria crisis.
Last month, Czech Military Intelligence (VZ) warned that Chinese spies were "very active" in the Czech Republic, adding that they focused mostly on the country's political-economic sphere.
Report: Chinese spies "very active" in Czech Republic
In March 2013, during the course of four days, unknown perpetrators carried out a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the Czech Republic's largest online newspapers, banks, and mobile phone operators.
