Russian military intelligence attempted to hack the systems of the Dutch Ministry of Defence, other ministries, and companies in an act of cyber-espionage.
The aim was to disrupt the Netherlands' military support for Ukraine, Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans wrote on social platform X.
“Russia’s military intelligence service attempted to hack the Dutch Ministry of Defence, other ministries and companies for cyber espionage. Their objective: to disrupt our military support to Ukraine. The Dutch MIVD and US agencies exposed this and took action. Well done,” the statement reads.
The Dutch Ministry of Defence said that cyber unit 26165 of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU), better known as APT28, is responsible for cyber-espionage against Ukraine and NATO countries — and that the Netherlands was among the targets. This was revealed by an investigation involving several parties, including the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the MIVD.
The Dutch armed forces, government ministries, and business community were both direct and indirect targets of cyber-espionage attempts. MIVD informed them of the threat, and appropriate countermeasures were taken.
