Greece and Turkey enter a cyberwar era

A number of cyberattacks took place this week between Athens and Ankara amid an ongoing escalating crisis between the two countries.

Greek media reported earlier this week that Turkish hackers attacked the websites of the Greek parliament, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Intelligence Service. Problems have also been reported on other websites, such as the Treasury and the Athens Stock Exchange.

The Turkish hacker group “Anka Neferler” took responsibility for the attacks.

In response, Anonymous Greece, a cyber hacking organisation, which defines itself as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), counter-attacked by targeting specific state-owned communications servers. Although the activities of this group have been controversial, they say they have frequently helped Greek authorities identify pedophiles operating online.

Late on Thursday night (23 January), Greek government spokesman Stelios Petsas confirmed that other attacks on the websites of the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, Shipping, Finance and the Prime Minister’s website.

“This evening there was a cyberattack on government sites by using the DDoS method. These attacks have led to the malfunctioning of specific websites,” he said.

In an interview with newspaper Ethnos.gr, Anonymous Greece members said those who attacked Greek websites were not professional hackers, but government officials.

“We consider them government officials of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with ample funding and no special skills. It is a common secret that this group operates under the orders of Turkish MIT,” two Anonymous Greece members said.

“Following the developments in Libya, we expected that they would do something. They tried to show some degree of strength but they failed,” they added.

Anonymous Greece also added that there are many more unsuccessful attempted attacks that are “silently” prevented. They even added that the “cyberwar” is daily and invisible, saying “we often prevent attacks. There’s a lot that people don’t see”.

Greek-Turkish relations have never been easy. But following a controversial Turkey-Libya Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) demarcating maritime zones in the region, the relations have reached a dangerous deadlock.