cyber-crime
Norad said it cannot be sure that the details of those in ‘conflict areas and authoritarian states’ are safe or not
Norway’s national aid agency, Norad, has confirmed that cyber criminals broke into its systems, stealing information about each and every registered user of its grant portal.Norad, which coordinates Norway’s assistance for foreign development, said that 20,614 registered individuals had their names and email addresses swiped, and information from at least three organizations’ applications was “misdirected.”The agency clarified that the grant portal, which was launched in 2017, has 20,614 registered users, meaning all were affected, across 12,511 organizations.
In addition, the grant applications for at least three organizations are confirmed to be involved, though Norad said it may discover more as its investigation continues.
Torger Kjeldstad, director of digitalization at Norad, said “the attack is complex,” and confirmed the agency has initiated a crisis team to manage it.”We know a lot about what has happened, but to ensure that we have a complete overview of the attack, we are working to engage external experts in cybersecurity,” he said. “They will give us a detailed description of what information those who attacked the solution have gained access to.”Kjeldstad added that “it should be safe” to continue using Norad’s services while it continues to probe what happened, and who was behind it.Norad did not reveal many details about how the attack unfolded, other than saying that 27 accounts were compromised and were then used to gain access to the portal and the data in question.The agency said the intrusion was detected on October 30, but did not offer any indication as to how long the attackers retained access to the grant portal.It also refused to rule out that names of applicants in “conflict areas and authoritarian states” may have been included in the stolen data – it is not known if recipients would have also been registered users – and said it is approaching the matter “very seriously.”The grant portal, managed by Norad, which itself is part of Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is responsible for handling applications from organizations across the world.
Recent case studies include support for independent, investigative journalism in Moldova, a country which routinely battles Russian propaganda and election interference, and backing for Ukrainian children and prisoners of war.The issues Norad and the Norwegian government support, however, are wide-ranging – from access to healthcare for transgender people worldwide and Kenyan incubators for innovative transport solutions, to delivering aid to war-torn Gaza. ®
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