European Carbon Trading System: 5 Registries Closed for Cyberattacks

As if anyone still did not believe cybercrime could be as serious as the worst traditional organized one, the latest cyberattacks against the European Union’s emission trading system are here to bring everyone back to reality.

Cyberattacks on national registries caused the closure of the ETS system last wednesday, right after from Czech Republic came the news that the firm Blackstone Global Ventures discovered to be missing something close to 9 million US dollars of carbon allowances.

Unfortunately for the European Union’s system, the cyberattacks did not affect only the Czech registry but altered at least also some other four national registries as the ones of Estonia, Austria, Poland and Greece – causing both their closure and a widespread panic on the real safety of European Union IT infrastructures.

Talking to the National Broadcasting, a special from the Estonian Ministry of Environment – Mr. Jürgen Talkop declared that “Estonia closed is register yesterday, after learning that allowances went missing from an account in the Czech register, in order to avoid future incidents” questioned about a breech that seems to have caused damages for almost 40 million Euros overall.

The European Commission also reacted to the cyberattacks by suspending spot trades until (at least) January 26 and by explaining how “ncidents over the last weeks have underlined the urgent need”.

Cyberattacks on national registries have led to the closure of the European Union’s emissions trading system for at least a week, officials said.

ETS: Three cyberattacks in 12 months

A great warning about the real safety fo the EU IT infrastructures already was felt already during the month of July 2010, when some hackers managed to hack the EU Climate Exchange website to manifest their protest against the EU trading system.

Another big case of phishing took place even before that hack, as in February 2010 six German companies declared losses for about 3 million Euros explaining how those were connectend to some cyberattacks on the European Union’s Emission Trading System.

And that is not all, since Reuters reported that even last November it was the time of a Romanian account to be looted for some 1.6 million carbon permits.

Three warnings that, apparently, were not enough to motivate the EU to sit down and realize ensuring the security of the IT infrastructures ruling the Union should finally be considered one of the highest priorities of its political and executive agendas.