Foreign ministry hack started in 2014 (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, February 13 - 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.