Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Covid vaccine bookings halted in Rome as hackers shut down regional government websites

Local officials said foreign hackers were behind a cyberattack on government systems in Lazio, the Italian region that includes Rome, which has meant people cannot make new bookings for coronavirus vaccinations in the area.

Published: 2 August 2021 20:09 CEST
Covid vaccine bookings halted in Rome as hackers shut down regional government websites
A vaccination centre in Rome. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

“The attacks are ongoing, the situation is very serious indeed,” regional governor Nicola Zingaretti told a press conference on Monday, as the head of Italy’s intelligence agency was called in to address parliament’s security committee on the incident.

The hack, “by persons unknown… from outside the country”, was launched on Saturday night and brought vaccine bookings to a halt, Zingaretti confirmed.

Jabs already reserved until August 13th would go ahead, he said.

READ ALSO: Italy says whole population will be vaccinated by end of September

“The attack was very powerful… Probably the most serious ever launched on our national territory,” Zingaretti said, describing the hackers as “criminal or terrorist”.

All computer servers in the regional government in Lazio have been shut down in a bid to stop the virus spreading.

The region’s website, www.regione.lazio.it, was still down on Monday evening.

The site for booking vaccinations was also unavailable.

Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP

The attackers used ransomware, a form of malware that encrypts the victim’s files, a regional official said.

A ransom, usually in bitcoins, is demanded in exchange for the key to decrypt the data.

However, no ransom request had yet been made for the Lazio website, Zingaretti said.

The attack is believed to have been launched from Germany, newspaper La Repubblica reports, and hackers are thought to have gained access to the regional network via a computer belonging to a government agency employee which “had been left open”.

The system holds data on “all citizens” in the capital region, Repubblica writes, including “the entire ruling class of the country, from (President) Mattarella to (Prime Minister) Draghi”

Some 66 percent of the adult population in Lazio have been vaccinated, according to officials.

Nationwide, 60 percent of Italy’s population over 12 years old has been fully vaccinated, with 68.5 million total doses administered.

In June the Italian government set up a new agency specialised in cybersecurity in order to fight an increasing number of attacks on official systems.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ROME

Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid ‘confusion among the faithful’

The Vatican updated its rules for supernatural events on Friday, such as visions of Christ or the Virgin Mary, including the acknowledgement that overactive imaginations and outright "lying" risked harming the faithful.

Published: 17 May 2024 16:59 CEST
Vatican updates guidelines on miracles to avoid 'confusion among the faithful'

The new norms, published by the Holy See’s powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis, allow for a more “prudent” interpretation of events that generally avoids declaring them outright a supernatural event.

“In certain circumstances not everything is black or white,” Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, who leads the dicastery, said at a press conference.

“Sometimes a possible divine reaction mixes with… human thoughts and fantasies,” Fernandez added.

The history of the Catholic Church is filled with episodes of strange or unexplained phenomena involving religious statues or other objects, whether in Italy or beyond.

The new guidelines come two months after the Church said that a series of widely reported miracles attributed to a statuette of the Virgin Mary – including making a pizza grow in size – were false.

The rules, which represent the first update since 1978, provide more guidance to bishops who until now have been left relatively free to determine the authenticity of such visions on a case-by-case basis.

Underscoring the complexity of the issue, only six cases of such alleged supernatural events have been “officially resolved” by the Vatican since 1950, with one taking “seventy excruciating years”, the document said.

“Today, we have come to the conviction that such complicated situations, which create confusion among the faithful, should always be avoided,” wrote Fernandez in the document.

Argentinian cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez speaks to the press on February 12, 2024. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

The new rules call for more collaboration between the individual dioceses and the Vatican regarding such events. Bishops’ final decisions will be submitted to the dicastery for approval.

That is crucial because “sometimes the discernment may also deal with problems, such as delicts (civil offences), manipulation, damage to the unity of the Church, undue financial gain, and serious doctrinal errors that could cause scandals and undermine the credibility of the Church,” said the document.

They include believers “misled by an event attributed to a divine initiative but is merely the product of someone’s imagination” or those who have an “inclination toward lying”.

In the absence of problems, dioceses will be able to declare a “Nihil Obstat”, indicating there is nothing in the phenomenon contrary to faith and morals.

That falls short of an official declaration of its supernatural authenticity, which is generally to be avoided under the new rules unless the pope authorises it.

SHOW COMMENTS