IT security weaknesses ‘expose Switzerland to hacker attacks’

The Russian NoName hackers have targeted critical Swiss infrastructure in recent weeks. © Keystone / Stringer

IT experts and politicians have warned that Switzerland is ill-prepared to deal with a rise in cyber-attacks against key installations.

Cybersecurity firm Dreamlab Technologies has found 106,000 security holes among 3.5 million servers in Switzerland, reports the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper. Some 50,000 weak points are rated as extremely serious.

Hackers have stepped up attacks against Swiss municipalities, universities and key services such as airports in the last couple of years.

The pro-Russian group NoName was blamed for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against government servers and Geneva airport before Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Swiss parliament last week.

“The ship is sinking. We must co-ordinate our efforts to plug the holes,” Dreamlab boss Nicolas Mayencourt told the NZZ am Sonntag on Sunday.

Parliamentarians from across the political spectrum have also called for more urgency in tackling the growing threat.

“It’s not even on our radar that Switzerland could suddenly find itself in the eye of a storm,” said People’s Party parliamentarian Franz Grüter.

From the start of next year, Switzerland’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) will become a new federal office, reporting to the defence minister.

The NCSC annual budget will correspondingly increase from CHF13.7 million to CHF14.5 million ($16.2 million). This will cover four extra full-time posts, the newspaper says.

But experts quoted in the article raise doubts whether this will be sufficient keep up with the rise in attacks.