Russia Hacks Biggest Risk To The Financial Stability of Lithuania

Cyber-attacks launched by Russia are the biggest threat to the financial system in Lithuania, a new survey of financial institutions conducted by the country’s central bank shows.

According to a report in Reuters, with Russian hacking on the mind of governments around the globe, including in the U.S., concerns among the financial firms of Lithuania — which was once ruled by Moscow but is now in NATO — is raising concerns.

“In contrast to the civilized world, where cyber threats are mostly criminal in nature and with a commercial intent, the cyber threats we are facing have a geopolitical aspect to them,” Lithuanian Central Bank Governor Vitas Vasiliauskas, said, when asked to comment on dangers posed by Russian state-sponsored hacking to the country’s online banking system, reported Reuters. “In our region, these threats are serious.”

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said so-called patriotic hackers may have launched cyber-attacks against countries that do not have good relationships with Moscow on their own but said the Russian government is not behind any of the hacking.

Lithuania has said earlier in 2017 that it found Russian spyware on three government computers and discovered dozens of attempts to break into the network. It’s a claim Putin said is “nonsense,” reported Reuters.

In an interview with Reuters, Lithuania’s Counterintelligence Chief Darius Jauniskis said Russia had attempted to create chaos in Lithuania by orchestrating a cyber-attack in 2012 against the Lithuanian central bank and the leading online news website, which it was able to bring down.

Russian-based hackers are also suspected to have launched attacks against the energy networks in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which has raised security concerns with NATO, noted the report. The financial firms polled by the central bank also said a rise in risk premiums in financial markets around the world and an imbalance in the local real estate market is also weighing on the financial stability of Lithuania.