The Italian foreign ministry
first came under attack by hackers in spring 2014 and the attack
was discovered in July of the following year, sources said
Monday.
Rome prosecutors opened an investigation following a report
on the hack from a specialist IT crime unit of the postal
police, sources said.
The espionage, therefore, dates back to when Federica
Mogherini, the current EU high representative for foreign
affairs, was at the helm of the ministry.
Last week British newspaper The Guardian reported that the
Italian foreign ministry had been hacked for at least four
months last year and that Russia was suspected of being behind
the attack.
Premier Paolo Gentiloni was head of the foreign ministry
almost all of last year until he replaced Matteo Renzi, the head
of Gentiloni's centre-left Democratic Party (PD), at the helm of
government after a Constitutional reform was rejected in a
referendum in December.
A source close to the Italian foreign ministry said Friday
that the hacking attack that The Guardian reported on was
"an affair that was already known about".
The source added: "following the first attack, there was an
immediate reinforcement intervention. It is good to reiterate
that they were not attacks on the encrypted information system
through which the most important and sensitive information
travels, but the system to manage the emails of foreign minister
and embassy personnel".
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said
Friday that there was no evidence to back the report of Moscow's
involvement.
"There are no facts that prove this assertion," Zakharova told
ANSA via WhatsApp when asked about the report.
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