The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania has officially reported that its digital platforms eviza.mae.ro and econsulat.ro were targeted by cyberattacks on the afternoon of March 13 and in the early hours of March 14, according to Digi24.
According to the ministry’s statement, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack was detected. The attack generated excessive traffic that slowed down the websites and, at certain moments, completely blocked access to them. Specialists from the ministry, together with technical security teams, responded promptly and were able to significantly reduce the negative impact of the incident. At present, all digital systems of the ministry are operating normally.
Officials explained that DDoS attacks involve artificially overwhelming a website with large volumes of traffic in order to block access, but they do not imply unauthorized access to data or data breaches.
The ministry emphasized that the incident should not be interpreted as a hacking intrusion aimed at stealing information. The perpetrators did not gain access to any confidential data. However, the main inconvenience was that the platforms temporarily became unavailable for Romanian citizens, which disrupted the provision of certain digital services.
The ministry also noted that globally the frequency of such attacks has been steadily increasing, and Romanian government platforms have repeatedly been targeted in recent years. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it will continue close cooperation with specialized institutions to ensure reliable protection of its information systems and guarantee uninterrupted digital services for citizens.
