The Norwegian government is warning that its ICT platform used by 12 ministries suffered a cyberattack after hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in third-party software.

This platform is used by twelve ministries in the country, with the exception of the Primature, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Norwegian Security and Services Organization (DSS) informed the National Security Authority (NSM) when the cyberattack was discovered and engaged the police, who are currently investigating the incident.

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has also been notified of the cyberattack, indicating that the hackers may have accessed and/or exfiltrated sensitive data from the ICT system, resulting in a data breach.

Despite the compromised platform’s critical role in day-to-day government operations, the recent cyberattack will not necessitate a shutdown of work activities.

“It is important to emphasize that the government continues to work normally,” explains DSS Public Notice.

“DSS has initiated a number of security measures to protect information on the affected ICT platform.”

“DSS has established a crisis team and is investigating and handling the incident with the assistance of the National Security Authority (NSM) and other security experts.”

DSS chief executive Erik Hope said hackers hacked into the ICT platform through a zero-day vulnerability in an application used by the government.

The flaw has now been patched and the agency has implemented additional security measures such as restricting remote access via mobile devices for ministry employees to the DSS ICT platform.

Unfortunately, DSS did not provide any details about the vulnerable software, so it is unclear whether this is a new wave of attack that could also impact organizations in other countries.

Hope said it was too early to attribute the attack to specific hackers or estimate the scale of the attack, and the government is relying on the ongoing police investigation to shed light on those issues.