No data lost from Turkish hacker attacks, probe finds

Last week’s attacks by Turkish hackers on websites of Greek state bodies including the Greek Foreign and Finance ministries, the National Intelligence Service (EYP) and Parliament are the latest in a string of such incidents over the years which, however, have not led to any data being stolen, according to sources.

Unlike other attacks by other Turkish hackers in recent years, which had sought to deface Greek websites, the assaults claimed by the Anka Neferler Tim (Phoenix’s Helmets) group last week were so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which make websites unavailable to users.

“A simple DDoS attack can be brief and not include a real violation of the system with the theft of information,” Vasilis Katos, professor of IT at the University of Bournemouth, told Kathimerini.

Sometimes the DDoS technique is used as a distraction to allow hackers to steal data in a parallel assault.

An investigation has not indicated that any data were stolen last week.