By Nora Buli
OSLO (Reuters) -Norway said on Monday that a March 10 cyber attack on parliament’s e-mail system was carried out from China, calling on authorities there to take steps to prevent such activities.
“This is a serious incident which has hit our most important democratic institution,” Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said in a statement.
An investigation by the country’s intelligence services had revealed the attack came from China and several of Norway’s allies, the European Union and Microsoft, had also confirmed this conclusion, she added.
The Chinese embassy in Norway was not immediately available for comment. Chinese officials have previously said China is also a victim of hacking and opposes all forms of cyber attacks.
The attack had utilised a security hole in Microsoft’s Exchange software.
Separately, the United States and a coalition of allies on Monday accused China’s Ministry of State Security of a global cyber hacking campaign, specifically attributing to a wider Microsoft attack disclosed earlier this year.
The Norwegian foreign minister said that the Chinese ambassador to Norway had been summoned to discuss the issue directly and that she expected China to take the issue extremely seriously.
“Chinese authorities must prevent that such attacks take place,” she said.
(Reporting by Nora Buli; editing by Niklas Pollard and Nick Macfie)
