The National Unit SK-CERT of the National Security Authority conducted the first of a series of the National Table-Top exercises on 14 May 2019. The exercise was named “A Suspicious Mail is Just the Beginning”. The Table-Top exercises are a kind of non-technical exercises focusing on decision-making, as well as practising and testing of own procedures and...

A few days ago the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) published the Global Cyber Security Index (GCI) for the year 2018. The GCI is published annually. The Slovak Republic moved up 36 places in the GCI compared to the year 2017 and took 45th place. The Global Cyber Security Index in the framework of cybersecurity focuses...

EU ELEx 2019 Exercise took place on 5 April 2019 on the European Parliament ground, focusing on operational handling of cybersecurity incidents during the European Parliament elections. The exercise was organized by ENISA in cooperation with the European Parliament and European Commission. At the beginning of the exercise the vice president of the European Parliament...

This year’s Guardians 2019 gave more space to young people from Slovakia with diverse experience in the field of information security. The competition brings together people who have wide experience in this field with those who just would like to direct their carrier to the field of cybersecurity. More sophisticated attacks, more teams, real environment...

The National Security Authority via the National Unit SK-CERT and the Binary Confidence Company Ltd. co-organize the third year of the Guardians competition for young IT specialists.  Prior to the upcoming elections of the head of the state, the competition will simulate attacks on the teams of candidates and will demonstrate how they can be...

The National Unit SK-CERT has become a part of an international project CyberExchange, the coordinator of which is CSIRT.cz. The project is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union. 11 CSIRT teams from all over Europe are participating in the project. The focus and target of the project is to increase the cooperation...

The European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission have reached a compromise on the text of the Cybersecurity Act. The Act aims to strengthen ENISA ˈs position and to recognize ENISA as main the EU Agency for Cybersecurity. This Act grants to ENISA a broad mandate in the field of cybersecurity and...

One of the largest and most comprehensive exercise in the field of NATO cyber defence Cyber Coalition 2018 was held in Estonian Tartu from 27 to 29 November 2018.  This exercise was attended by 28 countries with more than 700 participants. The Slovak Republic is already a regular participant in this exercise and this year...

40 000 login data to government portals in more than 30 countries. It is the result of investigation of the International company Group-IB dealing with cyberattack prevention. The company using the forensic analysis of malware samples found out that attackers unknown so far were capable of, through different techniques, collecting login data to government systems and...

On 13 and 14 November 2018 the Crowne Plaza Hotel is hosting an International Conference ITAPA 2018, the most famous and largest event since 2002, which is focuses on digitization of public administration.  The topics of this year’s ITAPA Conference are data and artificial intelligence, Cloud, public procurement, eGovernment, the potential of emerging technologies and cybersecurity....

The National SK-CERT Unit (hereinafter referred to as SK-CERT) has prepared a series of articles aimed at distribution of information on security vulnerabilities and the methodology used to evaluate their severity. This issue is connected with two important concepts – security warning and security bulletin. Issuing of security warnings and bulletins belongs to one of...

E-mail represents a crucial part of both corporate and private communication. Thanks to its popularity there is a plethora of different e-mail clients with advanced features that enhance the simple and originally pure text format of e-mail by features like sending of attachments (MIME), encrypted contents (S-MIME, PGP) or stylized HTML text with images. Nevertheless,...

SK-CERT national unit has become a full member of the community of Security and Incident Response Teams by gaining the Accredited status, the second level of membership within the Trusted Introducer Service on 3 May 2018, and thus has won an international recognition. More detailed information regarding the membership in TI is available at the following...

The beginning of the year 2018 has brought a constantly growing threat in the field of cyber security which impacts a huge amount of Internet users. Either societies with a large infrastructure or a teenager with a notebook. Despite the fact that it is not anything new, the growth of cases and new methods of implementation deserve a due attention. Let’s...

Locked Shields 2018, an internationally recognized exercise, was held on 24 – 26 April 2018. The exercise is annually organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn and represents the most comprehensive and the most advanced cyber security exercise organized at international level.   Within the simulated environment the teams...

The workshop aimed at clarification of status and responsibilities of operators of essential services and digital service providers was held on 13 April 2018 in Bratislava’s hotel Bôrik.  The Act on Cybersecurity came into force on 1 April 2018. It is the first legislative act which comprehensively approaches the issue of security in the national...

The National Cyber Security Index have been expanded by inclusion of eight new countries. One of these countries is the Slovak Republic, which has also become its new leader. This position reflects the high level of efforts invested in the development of cyber security over the past years. Slovakia achieved the maximum score in 7...

Historically first legislative act, regulating the issue of cybersecurity in the Slovak Republic was published in the Collection of Laws of the Slovak Republic on 9 March 2018. On the following links you can download the complete version of the Act on Cybersecurity no. 69/2018 Coll. in Slovak and English versions. The Act systematically and...

Memcached is an open-source software which serves as a cache of the web content. Its aim is to speed up the web applications by caching often used items in memory and thus alleviate the database load. It increases the site performance and the total scalability of web applications. The cache of the web content is...

Follow these tips to manage your privacy in an always-on world: Secure your devices: Use strong passwords, passcodes or touch ID features to lock your devices. These security measures can help protect your information if your devices are lost or stolen and keep prying eyes out. Think before you app: Information about you, such as...

Phishing attacks use e-mail or malicious websites (clicking on a link) to collect personal and financial information or infect your machine with malware and viruses. Spear Phishing Spear phishing involves highly specialized attacks against specific targets or small groups of targets to collect information or gain access to systems. For example, a cybercriminal may launch...

Report it to the appropriate people within the organization, including network administrators. They can be alert for any suspicious or unusual activity. If you believe your financial accounts may be compromised, contact your financial institution immediately and close the account(s). Watch for any unauthorized charges to your account. Consider reporting the attack to your local...