The Lithuanian Vice Minister of Defense, Edvinas Kerza, spoke publicly this week about the biggest cyber threats facing the small nation. According to the Vice Minister Lithuania has faced an extensive number of attacks originating from the Russian Federation but surprisingly did not blame the Russian government directly. He instead put the blame on “specific criminal groups” which he says they have identified as being funded by “Russian authorities”. According to Vice Minister Kerza, the attacks began as information attacks originally but then later evolved into cyber-attacks. The information attacks included what the Vice Minister referred to as “fake news” which was put out through a major news website and emailed to customers in documents that were laden with an undisclosed malware. Over the past year, the Lithuanian National Cyber Security Center recorded over 55,000 security incidents, roughly 150 a day, but did not indicate how many originated in Russia.
