Austria has summoned Russia’s ambassador in Vienna following confirmed evidence linking Moscow to a major cyberattack on the country’s foreign ministry, officials said Tuesday.
The move comes after all 27 European Union member states issued a joint statement identifying the Russian hacker group Turla as responsible for the attack, which targeted Austria’s foreign ministry around the turn of 2019 and 2020, according to ORF News. It is the first time the EU has formally attributed the incident to the group.
According to Austria’s foreign ministry, sensitive internal data connected to Russia was extracted during the breach. The cyberattack went undetected for weeks before authorities were able to contain and end it.
Officials say Turla is believed to be controlled by the 16th Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). The same group has also been linked to cyberattacks in several other European countries, including Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Cyprus.
Austria’s Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said the government had made it clear to the Russian ambassador that such actions are “unacceptable.” She warned that cyberattacks pose a direct threat to everyday life, noting that disruptions to payment systems, rail networks, or hospitals could affect the public on a large scale.
“Europe is facing a growing number of such attacks, and Russia is one of the main actors behind them,” she said.
Jörg Leichtfried, Austria’s state secretary for state security, also strongly condemned the attacks. He described them as an assault on national sovereignty, warning that such operations are designed not only to steal information but also to influence public opinion and destabilize political and social systems over time.
