AQW 30616/17-22 Written question to the Minister of Finance
To ask the Minister of Finance to detail the number of cyber-attacks on the NI Civil Service in each of the last five years.
Asked by Claire Sugden MLA on 7 March 2022
- Answered
- Written
- Tabled
- 7 March 2022
- Answer due by
- 23 March 2022
- Answered
- 11 March 20224 days after tabling
- Department
- Department of Finance
- Priority question
- No
Answer
It is not possible to say how many cyber attacks there have been against the NICS in each year. However the number of hostile events blocked by the NICS Network firewalls are a good indication of the scale of the matter.
Over a 30 day period which is representative of recurring monthly figures 604,080 items have been blocked from entering the NICS Network, each one representing a possible cyber attack.
The NICS technical infrastructure blocks between 80-100 million emails per month from entering the NICS email domain. A large portion of these emails are likely to contain malicious cyber threats.