Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications has organised an extraordinary meeting of the Coordination Body for Information Safety Affairs of the Republic of Serbia on the global ransomware attacks of malicious software WannaCrypt.
Member of the Body, representatives of the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Office of the Council for National Safety and Secret Data Protection, Directorate for eGovernance, General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the National CERT (Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services – RATEL), have confirmed that the Republic of Serbia was not a target in the first wave of such attacks, but that it is necessary to be cautious in the future and to take protective measures for information systems.
On this occasion the Body gave some recommendations on protection, which refer to the implementation of RATEL instructions, as the competent body for the operations of the National Centre for prevention of safety risks in the information and communication systems, i.e. technical instructions of the Microsoft company.
Also, the Body invites all the users to have in mind the constant need to implement measures of protection in the field of information safety, and to follow the general protocols on information system protection, which involves a regular elimination of technical shortcomings and updating of the systems.
In addition to the mandatory system protection, as another necessary safety component, of vital significance is the awareness that the process of malicious software is initiated by an activity of a user when reading messages in e-mails of suspicious and unknown sender as well as forwarding the internet links with it which are differently marked for the purpose of covered intention.
Representatives of the Sector of Information and Communication Technology the Directorate for joint activities of republic bodies (UZZPRO) has reminded that preventive measures have been taken in order to prevent possible attacks on the information systems of public administration, and all members of the Body repeated that the competent bodies have so far no reported cases of such attacks but that they are cautious.
State Secretary in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Tatjana Matić has chaired the meeting, and said that it is necessary to build general information safety skills and change the habits of the users and to build the capacities of the competent institutions in this field, due to quite frequent issues in the field o information safety.
