Loading story…
Slovakia’s Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization (MIRRI SR) and the Slovak Government CSIRT have rolled out an integrated cybersecurity service portfolio for public administration, shifting from isolated technology deployments toward operational security services designed to prevent incidents and improve readiness. The program combines threat intelligence sharing through Afrodita, centralized management of internet-facing vulnerabilities through Achilles, manual penetration testing via Ares, practical skills development in Kyberaréna, and an Early Warning System that correlates security data across participating organizations.
The services are offered free of charge to public-sector IT administrators and were developed under Slovakia’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. Officials said the model is intended to strengthen early threat detection, coordinated response, and day-to-day cyber resilience across government entities, while also extending awareness efforts to the public through the Fakt alebo Mýtus cybersecurity education game aimed at improving citizen cyber hygiene.
See the actors and campaigns active against you right now.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
Slovakia’s National Security Bureau (**NBÚ**) issued a cybersecurity alert after analyzing **NERO R-ONE** road-speed cameras used in the country’s traffic monitoring system and finding what it described as a significant cyber threat. The agency said the devices, reportedly rebranded Russian **CORDON PRO.M** units made by **Semicon/Simicon** in St. Petersburg, contained a backdoor capable of executing malicious code delivered by SMS from hardcoded Russian phone numbers. NBÚ also reported discrepancies between the products’ declared and actual hardware and software origin, undocumented communication interfaces, preconfigured remote access and management functions, mismatches in measurement-processing software, disabled **SecureBoot**, vulnerabilities in the web management portal, and unauthenticated exposure of live video streams. The warning covers **NERO R-ONE** by **SODASUS** as well as Cordon-series products linked to **Simicon** and **NEROline**, and NBÚ urged essential service operators and other organizations to identify any such devices in their infrastructure and report them. The cameras were procured through a no-bid contract from a Cyprus shell company under a **€30 million** EU-funded project, with **279 units** installed on Slovak roads. Following the findings, Slovakia’s Interior Ministry paused further deployment and said it would seek an independent audit to verify the report, while the observed risks were aligned with **MITRE ATT&CK** techniques `T1195.003` for hardware supply-chain compromise and `T1133` for external remote services.
Aug 24, 2026
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and OpenAI have launched an **AI Cyber Defense Pilot** for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and critical-infrastructure organizations. The pilot, involving the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), will assess OpenAI technology for vulnerability identification and validation, mitigation prioritization, remediation support, cyber-hygiene improvements, and faster threat-response decisions. The initiative targets public-sector organizations operating with limited security resources as cyber threats grow more sophisticated and federal support for MS-ISAC changes. CIS cited a 2024 survey finding that 80% of local-government respondents had fewer than five dedicated cybersecurity employees, underscoring the pilot's goal of helping smaller jurisdictions strengthen and manage their own defenses.
Sep 9, 2026
The UK government has publicly acknowledged that its longstanding cybersecurity policies for the public sector have failed, leaving critical services and departments vulnerable to cyberattacks. In response, officials have announced a sweeping reset with the introduction of the Government Cyber Action Plan, backed by over £210 million in new funding. The plan establishes a dedicated Government Cyber Unit, sets minimum security standards, and mandates robust incident response capabilities across all departments. This overhaul comes after years of fragmented accountability and recurring cyber incidents, including high-profile attacks on agencies such as the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), which suffered a major breach that went undetected for months despite significant prior investment in security improvements. The Public Accounts Committee has criticized the Ministry of Justice for its handling of the LAA cyberattack, revealing that despite £50 million spent on security, the agency failed to detect the intrusion for four months and delayed taking affected servers offline. The government’s new strategy aims to address these systemic weaknesses by improving risk visibility, enforcing stricter standards, and banning ransom payments by public-sector organizations. The action plan is positioned as a radical shift to protect essential services, restore public trust, and prevent future incidents that could disrupt healthcare, legal, and other critical infrastructure.
Jun 29, 2026