Greece’s Supreme Court has launched an urgent investigation into cyber-attacks that targeted the country’s high school exams for two consecutive days. The attacks disrupted the exams by overloading the system and causing delays, leading to cancellations of exams in some cases.
The Supreme Court Public Prosecutor has ordered an investigation with the assistance of the Hellenic Police Cyber Crime Unit to identify and apprehend the culprits behind the cyber-attacks. The cyber-attacks specifically targeted the data bank that provided the exam questions. The Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET) platform, which hosts the exams, was disabled as a result of the attacks.
The Education Ministry described the attack as the most significant ever carried out against a Greek public or government organization. It was revealed that the exam data bank platform received an overwhelming 165 million hits involving computers from 114 countries, indicating the scale and severity of the attacks.
Despite the disruptions caused by the cyber-attacks, the Education Ministry assured that the nationwide university entrance examinations would proceed as scheduled and with utmost safety. In a joint statement, the ministries of education and digital governance emphasized that no final-year high school student would be prevented from participating in the university entrance exams due to the cyber-attacks.
They highlighted that the platform used for the high school exams was completely separate from the system used for transmitting the questions in the university entrance exams. The cyber-attacks sparked political controversy, with opposition parties criticizing the ruling New Democracy party for failing to implement adequate digital protection measures for the exam platform.
Popi Tsananidou, a spokesperson for the left-wing main opposition party SYRIZA, accused New Democracy of neglecting the Subject Bank platform’s security, resulting in disruptions and difficulties for students during the exams. The investigation launched by the Supreme Court aims to identify the responsible individuals or groups behind the cyber-attacks and gather evidence to bring them to justice.
