OSLO - Norway’s NSM cybersecurity agency said Tuesday that the number of “successful” cyberattacks against organizations in the country had tripled in a year, in its first public evaluation of such risks. Its report follows warnings from several European countries alleging that Russia is behind a stepped-up campaign of hybrid warfare, including cyberattacks, in relation with the war in Ukraine. The NSM -- the National Security Authority -- did not identify any actors behind the attacks. “Over the past year, we have observed a tripling of the number of successful cyber operations against Norwegian organizations,” NSM director Arne Christian Haugstoyl told a news conference. “Several of them had serious consequences and continue to present a risk to national security,” he said. For instance, in spring a municipality in Oslo’s suburbs, Lorenskog, had a large amount of data stolen and offered for sale on the dark web after a cyberattack. Artificial intelligence was providing perpetrators with a powerful new tool to carry out such operations, Haugstoyl said. “The use of AI allows data to be exploited and misappropriated at a professional level, on a scale and in greater ways than before,” he said. The NSM has evaluated the level of cyber risk to the country at “heightened”, ranked second on a five-point scale.
