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Slovak, Polish parliaments hit by cyberattacks

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Cyberattacks hit the Slovak and Polish parliaments on Thursday, bringing down the voting system in Slovakia’s legislature, parliamentary authorities said.

“The attack was multi-directional, including from inside the Russian Federation,” the Polish Senate said in a statement.

Polish Senate speaker Tomasz Grodzki said it may be linked to the Senate’s vote Wednesday declaring the Russian government a “terrorist regime”.

The Slovak parliament’s deputy speaker Gabor Grendel told AFP: that “Parliament’s entire computer network has been paralysed”.

“Around 11 am (0900 GMT), we were about to vote when the head of our administrative department informed us there has been a cyberattack on the IT system of the parliament,” he said.

“Therefore, the parliamentary session was interrupted,” he added.

According to the lawmaker, all computers and phone lines went down, making it impossible for lawmakers to vote on several bills.

“We have not identified the source of this problem, our technicians are solving it,” Slovak parliamentary speaker Boris Kollar said.

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AFP

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.







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