Tag: balkan insight

Moldova’s Cyber Crime Defences Questioned After DarkNet Sting

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Security experts in Moldova are raising questions about the resilience of the country’s cyber defences after a massive operation at the European level, to which Moldova contributed, uncovered and closed the biggest DarkNet website selling drugs, stolen credit card data and malware.

German authorities dismantled DarkMarket, which was hosted by DarkNet, on Tuesday. Prosecutors from Koblenz said that “more than 20 servers from Moldova and Ukraine” had been confiscated and shut during the international police operation.

According to investigators, DarkMarket was “without a doubt, the largest market in the world on DarkNet”. They say the online platform included over 500,000 users and over 2,400 sellers.

“Moldova does not entirely control its territory where certain criminal groups covered by influential factors from Moldova and Russia are operating,” retired colonel Rosian Vasiloi observed to BIRN.

“In this sense, the authorities show their weakness because we have all the necessary levers to intervene in this regard with special investigation activity and criminal investigations – but somehow we don’t,” the military and security specialist told BIRN.

The former border police chief also stressed that whikle Moldova is doing well on paper in laws and security strategies, it has major difficulties implementing them. He also urged more transparency on such matters, as Moldovan authorities have stayed largely quiet so far on this problem.

Vasiloi said Moldova should cooperate more with Western investigative bodies and be more proactive in tackling such phenomena, not only when it is asked to. “We have specific commitments regarding this in the context of implementing the Association Agreement with the European Union,” he noted.

In total, at least 320,000 transactions were made on the illegal platform with Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies, and the total value of the transactions could amount to 140 million euros, authorities have said.

DarkMarket was “used mainly for the sale of drugs of all kinds” but also sold “counterfeit coins, stolen or counterfeit credit card data, anonymous SIM cards’ or computer viruses”, German prosecutors stated.

A 34-year-old Australian allegedly running DarkMarket was arrested this weekend on the German-Danish border and is in pre-trial detention.

Authorities worldwide, including the FBI, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and police in countries such as the UK, Denmark, Ukraine and Moldova contributed to the investigation under EU coordination.

Legendary Slovenian Student Radio Threatened With Loss of Funding

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Following news that Slovenian Radio Student will lose its funding from the Student Organisation of the University of Ljubljana, SOU, many NGOs, faculties, unions, local and international press freedom watchdog organizations have voiced their support for “one of Europe’s oldest and strongest non-commercial, alternative radio stations”.

Its editor-in-chief Matjaz Zorec told BIRN that relations between the student organisation and Radio Student have been bad for years and that everything worsened after the recent election of the main student body. Its session, held at the end of last year, then proposed to allocate the radio “zero euros”.

“Now there is a public alarm… Our request is not that complicated, 120,000 euros, that’s a little more than 4 per cent of their budget,” Zorec said.

According to Radio Student, the reason for the latest budget cut is critical reporting on the SOU structure and management.

While support from the SOU represents less than a fourth of radio’s total funding, its withdrawal would jeopardise the whole funding structure which derives from the co-funding of various national and European projects.

“We are financed through Slovenian and European projects, but we cannot do these projects without this money [from SOU]. If we do not have that money, it is a radical cut,” Zorec said.

SOU, on the other hand, says the real problem is a constant reduction of funds for the entire student organisation. In 2010, the SOU’s financial plan foresaw revenue of 7.5 million euros, dropping to only 2.9 million in 2021, it said on January 6.

In another press release, on Monday, the organization stated that “reduction of funds is not related to the reporting of Radio Student but only to the reduction of funds available to SOU”, adding that it still supports “free and democratic media reporting”.

It said it was “disturbing” that Radio Student “creates public pressure and publicly slanders individuals before trying to resolve the issue of founding within the organisation”.

It said the final version of 2021 SOU’s financial plan will be adopted on Thursday, and some amendments are possible. Zorec says SOU offered some amounts to Radio Student in the meantime, but that they are not enough.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, joined its affiliates in Slovenia in condemning the SOU’s withdrawal of funds, and supporting Radio Student’s calls.

Established in 1969, Radio Student is one of Europe’s oldest and strongest non-commercial radio stations, offering diverse and dedicated programme activities, covering current political, social and cultural phenomena.

More than 300 organizations and more than 1,000 individuals have signed a petition supporting Radio Student. Most Slovenian MEPs also reacted and warned that depriving the radio station of funds would be in contradiction with EU media plurality goals and efforts.

A number of local and international press freedom watchdog organisations have accused the Slovenian government led by right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa of using the pandemic to restrict media freedoms and make often personal attacks on journalists.

Although Zorec says that the government is not directly involved in the problem of radio financing, he says that “such a climate has developed that to some people [limiting media freedom] seems normal”.

“The media were attacked in Slovenia, the vast majority of the public is against it,” he concluded.

On 5G ‘Journey’, Opportunity at Every Turn for Balkan Economies

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To Matjaz Bericic, chief technology officer at Telekom Slovenije, 5G is “not the destination, it is the journey”.

If that’s the case, the countries of the Balkans are at very different stages of that journey, but for all of them the potential benefits of the next cellular standard are vast, experts say.

“An early strategy on 5G deployment and frequency licencing could be a great opportunity for the region, as it can be seen as part of the advanced infrastructure that can attract investments from, for example, industrial production companies or multimedia production companies,” Petar Popovski, professor of wireless connectivity at Denmark’s Aalborg University, told BIRN.

“Reliable connectivity infrastructure becomes a must-have commodity, such as electricity or water,” he said.

In the Balkans, Slovenia is ahead of the rest, with Telekom, the country’s leading provider of ICT services, having already launched the first 5G mobile network in July this year. Slovenia is now one of 18 of the European Union’s 27 members with a 5G commercial network.

Bericic said the road to launch was long and complex, requiring advanced network technology and testing of the whole network chain – antennae systems, base stations, transfer systems, aggregation and core networks, services and terminal equipment. But the benefits are huge, he said.

“This evolutionarily upgrade allows users to achieve higher data transfer speeds than on the LTE/4G, while the full potential of 5G technology will become available after additional frequency bands are awarded,” Bericic told BIRN.

Various stages of rollout


Illustration. Photo: Unspash/James Yarema

Wireless connectivity experts say the Balkan region stands to benefit most from the reliable connectivity, infrastructure and services that 5G technology offers.

“The most important feature of 5G is that it is a flexible connectivity platform, capable to offer wide range of connections, from high-speed video streaming to low-latency tactile interactions with robots,” said Popovski.

At the end of November, Austrian mobile operator A1 launched a 5G network covering central areas, residential districts and business locations in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. In Croatia, A1 expects to make 5G available this month to more than 70 towns and cities.

Elsewhere in the region, Serbian mobile operator Telenor last year rolled out the first 5G base station in the country, in the Science Technology Park in the capital, Belgrade, and making it available for use by local and foreign companies, startups and students of technical faculties.

In North Macedonia, the Agency of Electronic Communications, AEK, expects to announce a tender for the allocation of radio frequencies for the introduction of 5G by the end of this year or the beginning of next, said AEK adviser Igor Bojadjiev.

“At the moment, from a technical and from a legal point of view, Macedonia has provided all the necessary conditions for starting the implementation of 5G,” Bojadjiev told BIRN.

North Macedonia is counting on 5G to aid the country’s economic development and the development of a national wireless ecosystem.

“The future economic and social development of Macedonia will largely depend on the development of new wireless technologies and digitalisation in all social spheres,” Bojadjiev said.

Vladimir Atanasovski, Vice Dean for Finance at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies in the capital, Skopje, said the early adoption of 5G “may provide a crucial advantage for Macedonia companies, making them more competitive on the international market.”

“5G can drive the economic development of a country by supporting both traditional manufacturers (that will embrace the technologies made practically usable by 5G) and novel and innovative companies that come up with products and solutions in the areas of data gathering, data analysis, associated artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts etc,” Atanasovski told BIRN.

Businesses already reaping the benefits


A 5G logo. Photo: EPA-EFE/WILL OLIVER+

Across Europe, businesses and industries are already starting to reap the benefits of 5G networks.

The technology’s impact can be seen in industries ranging from smart production to agriculture, transport and energy. Some countries are taking 5G usage to the next level.

“For example, Germany started very early to licence frequencies for private 5G networks,” said Popovski, of Aalborg University.

“Those frequencies can be owned within a restricted area (for example, a factory) and the owner can control interference to offer predictable link performance, which is not the case with the technologies using unlicensed access, such as Wifi.”

In Central Europe, Czech-based 2N Telekomunikace, which specialises in the development and manufacturing of communication solutions, is already working on projects which include the use of 5G.

“5G will be a game-changer in terms of unlocking the potential of the IoT and making smart cities a reality,” CEO Michal Kratochvil told BIRN.

“It will offer great opportunities for almost every industry. We at 2N are particularly excited about it because our IP access control products are already part of the smart city solution and are a natural fit into the 5G ecosystem.”

‘In the pandemic period’


A woman wears a protective face mask in Zagreb, Croatia, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANTONIO BAT+

Some companies also expect 5G technology to have a big impact on transport and infrastructure.

For example, Rail Baltica, an international railway project spanning the Baltic states, is considering 5G technology for projects such as strengthening railway security, together with the use of drone technology.

Earlier this year, Latvian mobile operator LMT successfully completed the first ever cross-border drone flight conducted entirely over the mobile network. 5G offers even greater potential.

“If there’s sufficient coverage in the air, the mobile network can ensure uninterrupted connectivity throughout the entirety of its flight, which significantly improves safety,” said LMT Vice President Ingmars Pukis. “LMT’s strong network coverage makes drone flight and other 5G use case testing a possibility.”

Such developments offer hope for up-and-coming industries in the Balkans.

“5G also supports efficient simultaneous connections of a large number of devices, which will facilitate the development of smart industry, smart cities and communities and, through the option of network slicing, provide continued digitalisation of the economy and the introduction of numerous virtual dedicated (campus) networks,” said Bericic, of Telekom Slovenije.

The introduction of these “campus” networks would mean that a single physical infrastructure can host several virtual dedicated networks for various business verticals, such as energy supply, transportation, logistics, manufacturing, smart cities, healthcare, protection and rescue…

“We can hardly imagine living without the proper support of high capacity mobile services at every step, especially also now in pandemic period,” Bericic told BIRN. “Same goes for communication through different apps, unlimited access to information, social networks or the option of remote learning or remote work.”

Suing to Silence: Lawsuits Used to Censor Bosnian Journalists

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Last year, Bosnian journalist Adnan Jasarspahic wrote an article for a local portal questioning the transparency of public sector recruitment in his municipality, Visoko, after the sister of the then mayor was hired by a municipality-owned company.

That Jasarspahic was sued by the mayor, Amra Babic, for defamation was one thing. That he had to move to the capital, Sarajevo, was quite another.

In Sarajevo, he said, “If you enter a lawsuit with anyone here, you’ll find someone to defend you.” Not so in towns like Visoko, a little over 30 kilometres northwest of the capital. “What’s it like in those small towns where the local sheriffs are masters of life, in charge of everything?”

“It’s not just about being sued and about defamation itself,” Jasarspahic told BIRN. “Things run deeper here. They mess with your family.”

Jasarspahic won the case, but the damage was done. Dozens of other journalists face similar challenges every year, sued for their reporting mainly by public officials in what media bodies say is a strategy of censorship, bogging down reporters in lengthy, costly court proceedings that make many think twice about digging into the affairs of prominent people.

According to an analysis conducted by the Bosnia mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, 80 per cent of cases were brought by public officials, ignoring the principle often cited by courts that such officials submit to a higher degree of public scrutiny and criticism.

This “should not be the case,” said Kathleen Kavalec, head of the OSCE mission. “Because these are exactly the individuals who should be open to public scrutiny and journalists who are doing their jobs, holding them accountable to the citizens who voted for them.”

The analysis found that 30 per cent of those cases dragged on for more than five years, prolonging the pressure on reporters and their media outlets.

Defamation suits are being “misused to prevent journalists from investigating certain topics or certain individuals,” said Sinisa Vukelic, director of the business portal Capital and a member of the Journalists’ Club of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia.

Lawsuits as ‘intimidation’


Adnan Jasarspahic, journalist. Photo: BIRN

In Jasarspahic’s case, Babic filed the suit even without first seeking a retraction. Jasarspahic said his article on Visoko.co.ba had simply stated the facts, as did the eventual verdict in his favour handed down by the Zenica Cantonal Court.

“You are a public figure, you spend public money, you exist in public space, you give statements in public space, but you act as if I entered your private space,” Jasarspahic told BIRN.

The storm the case kicked up in Visoko, however, made life for Jasarspahic and his family intolerable, prompting their move to Sarajevo.

Babic, the former mayor, declined to comment for this story.

Media and legal experts say it was far from an isolated case.

Defamation suits are “used for intimidation,” said Biljana Radulovic, a lawyer in the eastern Bosnian town of Bijeljina.

“Politicians are mostly those suing journalists with the excuse of protecting their reputation. They file lawsuits for protection from defamation, thus intimidating journalists with the enormous amounts being claimed and often won in court proceedings,” Radulovic told BIRN.

Adi Isakovic, a judge at the Municipal Court in Sarajevo, said the number of such cases grows during each election campaign and that their sheer frequency is concerning.

“The abundance of such lawsuits surely affects the independence of journalists,” Isakovic said. “If a journalist publishes a news item of public interest and gets sued for defamation, of course it will matter in the future when they publish their next investigative story that they think the public should know about.”

The growing rate of such lawsuits in recent years has led to the closure of a number of media outlets and brought others to the brink of financial collapse – Sarajevo’s Slobodna Bosna newspaper and Respekt weekly in Banja Luka among the most prominent examples.

“It was simply impossible to function within such a system,” said former Respekt journalist Zeljko Raljic, “because the judiciary is under direct political control, particularly over the last three or four years.”

Vukelic said smaller media outlets were particularly endangered given they lack the resources to fight off repeated lawsuits.

“They cannot endure the pressure,” he said. Such cases can encourage self-censorship among less experienced journalists, who might ask, “Why should I write about that topic when there are a thousand others I can address?” he said.

Years-long legal battles


Sejla Maslo Cerkic, a legal officer at the Human Rights Section of the OSCE mission in Bosnia. Photo: BIRN

When such lawsuits reach court, they can stay there for years, in some more than 11 years, said Sejla Maslo-Cerkic, a legal officer at the Human Rights Section of the OSCE mission in Bosnia.

“When cases and proceedings last this long, everything loses sense both for the party seeking protection of their reputation in court and journalists and the media outlets due to additional costs which they sometimes cannot cover,” Maslo-Cerkic told BIRN.

Court rulings are often inconsistent or contradictory, creating greater legal uncertainty for journalists, she said.

“Under our law, the burden of proving that something is true is placed on defendants, in this case the media or journalists,” Maslo-Cerkic said. “We have noticed that the standard, the scale set by the court for journalists and the media is set too high.”

Bosnian courts, she told BIRN, do not work according to the principle set by the European Court of Human Rights by which freedom of expression protects the expression of statements that may sometimes be “shocking, disturbing or embittering.”

Arben Murtezic, director of the Centre for Education of Judges and Prosecutors in the Federation, one of two entities that make up postwar Bosnia, also cited the inconsistency of court rulings in such cases, but was sceptical of any imminent change.

“It is hard to start harmonising practices without touching the basic principle of the judiciary, i.e. the independence of judges,” Murtezic said.

“Almost all defamation cases are different and special. Each of those cases, and I have really read many of them, has its own specific features and protected values and gravity and compensation amounts claimed … So, I think that hardly anything can be done in that respect.”

‘Hard to be a journalist’


Matt Field, British ambassador to Bosnia. Photo: BIRN

The situation appears even harder for female journalists, particularly in terms of the abuse they are subjected to outside the actual lawsuits.

“When we speak about the exposure of female in comparison to male journalists, I would say that women are far more susceptible to this and are mainly the subject of such sexual assaults,” said Leila Bicakcic, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Sarajevo.”

The British ambassador to Bosnia, Matt Field, agreed: “The abuse that they receive is out of proportion with their male colleagues,” he said. “It is much more unpleasant, much more personal … It is not normal. It is not part of doing their job and we should not accept that.”

Besides training for judges and prosecutors, experts say there should be strict adherence to the standards set by the European Court of Human Rights.

“We know very well, as we have learnt in the last couple of decades, that journalism is an indispensable segment of democracy,” said lawyer Nedim Ademovic.

“However, journalism is a two-way street. On one side, journalists must be educated and learn about the professional journalism standards, especially ethics in journalism and legal standards, in order to eliminate a danger of lawsuits jeopardising their independence. On the other hand, the state and even business entities dealing with journalism must ensure that journalists will be financially independent, so the fear from lawsuits would not actually lead to their self-censorship.”

Jasarspahic, from Visoko, said he knew of dozens of journalists who had given up fighting defamation suits simply because of the cost involved.

“When a journalist enters a court proceeding, you are immediately down 2,500 marka [1,276 euros]. Lawsuit, response to lawsuit, hearings … All those things cost money,” he said.

“If you lack money to defend yourself, you lose. You defend yourself with your money. Public officials defend themselves with budgetary money… Let’s face it – it’s hard to be a journalist these days. Very hard. The only way out is by solving things institutionally.”

China Increasing its Footprint in Balkan Media, Study Concludes

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A study presented on Wednesday authored by Vladimir Shopov, an expert on foreign relations and an European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) visiting fellow – says China is positioning itself in the media sector in Southeast Europe.

For the purpose of the study, “Getting on the Radar: China’s Rising Media Presence in South-East Europe”, Shopov said he conducted 40 interviews in eight countries over September to November, with different “media experts, journalists, policy analysts and researchers, university lecturers, diplomats, politicians and businesspeople”. The author also used desk research.

“China is creating an increasingly elaborate media cooperation framework with both state and private media institutions,” the report notes, adding that while “the focus is largely on economy and business”, it is “gradually expanding to include politics” – with mainly positive and fact-based reporting and “little critical content”.

The report elaborates on each Western Balkan country in detail.

It notes that China’s Xinhau News Agency has official collaboration deals with counterpart agencies in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia, where study visits for local journalists to China are organised often. Study visits are also organised in Croatia and Montenegro, despite a lack of extensive collaboration contracts there.

Free-of-charge Chinese content, such as documentaries “about China’s system of governance”, was brought to Albania under a 2019 agreement between the respective public broadcasters, the report recalls.

Albanian media report mainly on bilateral Chinese relations and run interviews with Chinese officials. The Chinese embassy has encouraged youngsters to write about China’s management of the pandemic.

Unlike Xinhua correspondents in Albania, who are not very active, in Bosnia and Herzegovina they engage in activities beyond journalism such as lecturing in universities.

“The other main actor is the China-focused” Kina-Danas regional media outlet, running since 2014, which reflects Beijing agenda and functions as a regional media outlet.

Stories focus on Chinese economic projects, although Chinese businesses do not usually communicate much with the media.

In Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency often distributes the “photo content” of Xinhua, the report notes.

Another Chinese outlet present for decades in Sofia, which has its local network, is Economic Daily. The news portal 24 Hours has created a segment entirely based on Chinese sources and content, called Focus China. Various portals presenting views of Beijing are currently being created in the country.

Croatia’s official collaboration with Chinese media is thin and “the main platform for cooperation are annual study visits for Croatian journalists”, the report says.

The local media’s increased reporting on China focuses on individual projects or China-US relations. The biweekly magazine Globus has a supplement on China and there are unofficial reports on Chinese companies’ failed attempts to acquire Croatian media organisations.

In Kosovo, China’s non-recognition of its statehood creates “extremely limited space for interaction” there, but the Beijing liaison office, although barely noticeable, is increasing its activities. Local reports focus mainly on Serbia-China relations and on Kosovo’s non-recognition.

China’s media presence in Montenegro is also thin. Chinese media provide free content for local media, which is considered low quality by most journalists. Montenegrin events are covered by Xinhua’s correspondent in Belgrade.

Coverage of developments in China is growing in North Macedonia as well, though, “most news items are about the economy, relate to ongoing or potential bilateral projects and remain factual” and often they are just translations of Western media reports.

In 2016, China’s State Council Information Office signed a collaboration agreement with Serbia’s Ministry of Culture, which intensified “media collaboration at the institutional level”.

News items in Serbia on China are often very positive, with “all projects … presented as investments while in most cases they are being funded via loans”, the report notes. Reporting on Chinese embassy activities is mainly managed by the Serbian state, and “critical outlets are visibly kept at a distance”.

The Human Factor: Experts Warn of Czech Hospitals’ Cyber Vulnerability

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On the morning of Friday, March 13, the duty nurses at the University Hospital in the Czech city of Brno received emergency guidelines on conducting essential meetings.

The Czech Republic had just declared a strict nationwide lockdown and organisations across the country were scrambling to move their meetings online. But the hospital in Brno, bracing for its first wave of Covid patients, was going the other way.

The emergency guidelines said all operational matters must be discussed face-to-face rather than online, in team meetings to be held at regular intervals several times a day.

The measures worked, and the virus – a form of ransomware that had paralysed the hospital’s computers – was eventually contained.

“You cannot prepare for a situation like that,” recalls Branislav Moravcik, the head nurse at the hospital’s Clinic of Anaesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Resuscitation. “The key is not to panic.”

Moravcik learnt of the cyber-attack in the early hours of Friday morning. Upon reaching work, he backed up his most important data on a flash drive and shared the emergency guidelines with his team.

With computers and medical equipment linked to the IT network shutting down around him, he sent the guidelines using a personal laptop tethered to his mobile phone’s internet connection.

Were such an attack to happen again, Moravcik said, it would be helpful if staff could draw upon planned protocols, as well as mandatory training, to work out what to do.


Healthcare workers care for COVID-19 patient in the department of anaesthesiology, resuscitation and intensive care medicine (ICU) at General University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic. Photo: EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK.

The incident at the University Hospital in Brno was one of several cyber-attacks or attempted cyber-attacks targeting Czech medical facilities this spring.

In mid-April, hospitals in Ostrava, Olomouc and Carlsbad reported malicious activity in their IT systems, just days after the National Cyber and Information Security Agency, NUKIB, had issued a warning signalling the imminent threat of such attacks. As is usually the case, there was no clue to the hackers’ identity beyond the strings of numbers denoting their IP addresses.

These incidents revived a debate in mainstream media outlets about the state of the Czech public sector’s IT infrastructure, accompanied by speculation that the hacks might have been the work of foreign powers such as Russia and China.

The Czech government responded by pledging to upgrade its cyber defences. But as the country faces a second, deadlier surge of coronavirus infections over the winter, cyber-security experts are once again questioning the healthcare system’s ability to withstand attack at a time of crisis.

Experts interviewed by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, have said any investment in technical solutions must be accompanied by large-scale staff training in the basics of digital hygiene. Expensive upgrades, they argued, could only be as effective as the weakest links in the system – the tens of thousands of individuals who accessed public sector IT networks every day.

“The human factor plays a big role in cyber security,” said Michal Salat, Director of Threat Intelligence at Avast, a Prague-based provider of anti-viral software that helped Brno’s University Hospital deal with the aftermath of the attack. “It is easier to trick a person than it is to hack into a system.”

Hackers often use seemingly innocuous e-mails to convince individuals to provide the confidential details or download the infected files that end up compromising entire networks. Salat said stressed-out, busy workers – such as those staffing a hospital during a pandemic – would be particularly vulnerable to such “social engineeering” tactics.

To minimise the risk, he said, medical facilities should keep their software up to date, make constant backups of important data, and train staff in best practices for digital hygiene as they do for other forms of hygiene.

Digital-hygiene lessons would have to be repeated at regular intervals for their message to be re-enforced. Jan Kozanek, a cybersecurity specialist at the Accenture consultancy, warned of long-ingrained bad habits in the public sector, describing how any visitor to a local hospital was free to check standards for themselves with a little test. “Just count how many times you can spot passwords written on a piece of paper” near a computer workstation, he told BIRN.

‘Only an amateur would leave tracks’

Hospitals’ overwhelming reliance on IT systems to provide urgent care has made them popular targets for hackers seeking to extort money. Ransomware attacks, in which hackers encrypt data and demand payment for restoring access, have been reported at medical facilities across the US and Europe this year.

An attack on a hospital in the German city of Dusseldorf in September was investigated for having caused the death of a seriously ill patient, in what was thought to be the first such case of its kind. The investigation was however dropped as there was not enough evidence that the hack had led to the death. The best-known such attack remains the 2017 “Wannacry” hack that plunged the UK’s National Health Service into crisis, leaving computer screens frozen with messages demanding ransom payments.

This year’s cyber-attacks in the Czech Republic fit within this global trend, as well as within a narrower trend for hacks targeting the country’s public sector IT infrastructure. In June last year, for instance, NUKIB reported that the Czech foreign ministry’s e-mail servers had been targeted by hackers. This April, the country’s main travel hub, the Vaclav Havel Airport, said it had thwarted an attack on its IT system.


Healthcare workers transport a COVID-19 patient to Motol University Hospital after transfer from Zlin region, in Prague, Czech Republic. Photo: EPA-EFE/MARTIN DIVISEK.

Both the EU and the US issued statements criticising the cyber-attacks in the Czech Republic this spring. Several Czech media outlets went further, accusing Russia of orchestrating the hacks – a claim described by the Russian embassy in Prague as a “provocation”. Russia has major business interests in the country and its government is frequently accused of trying to influence Czech politics, as well as public opinion through disinformation campaigns. Similar accusations have also been directed at China, another global player with interests in the Czech economy.

Experts are however cautious about claims that foreign governments are involved in the recent hacks. According to Yuval Ben-Itzhak, the former CEO of Israeli cyber-security firm, Finjan, who currently heads the Prague-based digital marketing company, Socialbakers, state actors prefer making discreet inroads into IT infrastructure over high-profile hacks. “Governments want to have access on a long-term basis, not visibility in the news,” he told BIRN.

Alexandra Alvarova, a writer on disinformation tactics in the Czech Republic, said claims of Russian involvement in the hacks would most likely remain unverified unless there was a high-profile defection from the ranks of its intelligence service. “In this business, only an amateur would leave tracks, and Russian intelligence hackers are some of the best in the world,” she told BIRN.

Czech lawmakers are currently seeking to amend laws in order to give NUKIB a bigger role in defending hospitals from cyber-attack. NUKIB spokesman Jiri Taborsky said the legislative changes are a response to a “long-term, unsatisfactory situation” in the Czech healthcare system’s cyber-defences.

“This situation in turn reflects long-term under-investment in hardware and software infrastructure, as  well as in human resources,” he told BIRN in an emailed statement. “NUKIB has been warning of this every year in its annual report on the state of cyber-security.”

The agency said it was also providing “educational materials and courses to help medical staff nationwide educate themselves” about the cyber threat.

‘Working crazy hours’

While claims of foreign involvement in specific hacks are rarely proven, the view that the Czech Republic is lagging behind in cyber-security matters has become a vote-winner.

The 2017 general election delivered a breakthrough for the Pirates Party, a new political formation that won the third-largest share of votes with a tech-savvy message that appealed to younger voters. A legislator for the party, Ondrej Profant, told BIRN that the country’s older governing class simply “did not understand the digital world – they lack the elementary habits”.

He acknowledged that the government had prioritised cyber-security following the attacks this spring, and praised NUKIB’s new digital-hygiene guidelines for staff at public offices. However, he warned, more training was needed.

“We are willing to invest in expensive technologies which improve our security by some margin against highly sophisticated attacks, but we forget about the staff at the main entrance,” he said. “It is as if we are building a very high wall to protect ourselves but leaving the door unlocked.”

It is moreover uncertain how much of an impact additional training will have on everyday habits in Czech hospitals. Apolena Rychlikova, a journalist who has reported on the healthcare system, said the effectiveness of digital-hygiene training would also depend on variables such as staff members’ age and workload.

“In general, medical facilities were understaffed and people were working crazy hours – and that was before the pandemic,” she told BIRN.

Albin Sybera is a journalist and Visegrad Insight fellow based in Ljubljana. This article was edited by Neil Arun. It was produced with a Reporting Democracy grant for stories that reveal how the Covid-19 crisis is reshaping politics and society in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe.

Serbian Security Service Named Among Users of Israeli Surveillance Software

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In research published on Monday, Citizen Lab, an Institute of the University of Toronto that specializes in surveillance issues, listed 25 countries and agencies – including Serbia’s Security Information Agency – that use the software of the Israeli company Circles, which enables the user to locate every phone in the country in seconds.

Founded in 2008, Circles reportedly exploits weaknesses in the global mobile phone system to snoop on calls, texts, and the locations of phones around the globe.

Circles is a part of NSO Group, an iPhone and Android spyware developer that is being sued by Facebook over attacks on the accounts of 1,400 WhatsApp users.

It has also been criticized for selling its services to governments that use it to spy on activists, journalists and other citizens, according to Forbes.

Circles, whose products work without hacking the phone itself, says it sells only to nation-states, but Citizen Lab’s research, based on leaked documents, shows that clients can purchase a system that they connect to their local telecommunications companies’ infrastructure, or they can use a separate system called the “Circles Cloud,” which interconnects with telecommunications companies around the world.

According to Citizen Lab, likely Circles customers include governments in Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Chile, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Peru, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Bill Marczak, from the University of California in Berkley, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, said the investigation should raise awareness on the wider issues. “We hope this report enables people to ask more precise questions and perhaps even improve the regulation of the field, which today operates as if it were the Wild West,” Marczak told Calcalyst.

But an NSO spokesperson told Forbes in the name of both NSO and Circles that they operate with “a commitment to ethical business and adhere to strict laws and regulations in every market in which they operate”.

“We cannot comment on a report we have not seen. Given Citizen Lab’s track record, we imagine this will once again be based on inaccurate assumptions and without a full command of the facts. As ever, we find ourselves being asked to comment on an unpublished report from an organization with a predetermined agenda,” the spokesperson said.

The technique used by the Circles tech is known as Signaling System 7 (SS7) exploitation. A SS7 is a protocol suite developed in 1975 for exchanging information and routing phone calls between different wireline telecommunications companies, the Citizen Lab report says.

In its research, the Toronto-based laboratory notes that  whileabuse of the global telephone system for tracking and monitoring is believed to be widespread, it is difficult to investigate. When a device is tracked or messages are intercepted, there are not always traces on the target’s device, the report warns.

Albania Govt Moves Again to Toughen Defamation Penalties

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The Ministry of Justice in Albania on Thursday said it is working on changes to the penal code that include upping the fines to 4.5 million leks (36,000 euros) for defamation, and extending responsibility not only to journalists but also to editors and directors of media outlets and others.

The current penal code classes defamation as a misdemeanor punishable by fines of up to 3 million leks. It also obliges the claimant to prove that the defendant intentionally distributed untrue statements while being aware of the true fact.

The new rephrasing proposed by the ministry removes this important criterion while enlarging the scope of the provision to provide protection not only to individuals but also to institutions, while foreseeing heavier fines if the claimant is a state or political official.

“If this penal offence [defamation] is directed against a political body, an administrative or judicial body, or against a person who [is] representative of one of these bodies … the punishment is increased by 1/2,” the proposal reads.

“When this penal offence is committed through the printed press, responsibility is extended to the administrative director or, case by case, to the deputy director, to the publisher and the typographist in case they know about the penal fact.”

Speaking to Ora Television on Thursday, Prime Minister Edi Rama explained the rationale thus: “I wouldn’t mind if someone calls me a donkey, but if they call me a thief, that is a charge”.

Rama is in his eighth year as Prime Minister, and has repeatedly dodged allegations of corruption raised against his government or about the collaboration of his party with organised groups to pressure voters in elections. Claiming he is the victim of lies and fake news, he has attempted several times to create new legal tools against “defamation”.

In 2015, he personally proposed changes to the penal code introducing prison sentences for defamation charges against officials, after the opposition accused him of protecting organised crime groups from justice.

In 2016, his government proposed changes to the Electronic Commerce Law that ordered websites to “take down illegal content immediately” when someone claims their reputation has been infringed.

In 2018, his office proposed the creation of an administrative body to supervise the online media with power to order takedowns of news under the threat of hefty fines. According to Rama, the law was needed to “protect businessmen from media attacks”.

All these initiatives have failed to get through, however, following strong criticism by local and international rights organisations and institutions.

The latest change is also currently blocked in the parliament after the Venice Commission issued a highly critical report last summer, pointing out that the change could “block any critical remarks against public figures and/or suppress legitimate political debate on matters of public interests”.

The Council of Europe advisory body also emphasized that “oligarchs (multi-millionaires or billionaires who create or take over media empires to serve their business and / or political interests)” could make use of it.

Hungarian Media Expansion in Balkans Raises Worries but Lacks Impact

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When Hungarian investors completed the purchase of the Slovenian state-controlled Planet TV for almost 5 million euros in October, it was the latest in a series of media takeovers in Slovenia and North Macedonia by Hungarian businessmen.

The Planet TV buyer, TV2 Média Csoport Zrt, was reportedly co-owned by Jozsef Vida, one of the wealthiest Hungarians, described as a member of the business circle around the ruling Hungarian party of Fidesz.

The Hungarian expansion started in 2017, when three companies from Budapest – Ridikul, Ripost and Modern Media Group – bought Slovenia’s Nova24TV. In 2018, Ripost and Modern Media Group left Nova24TV when two companies Hespereia and Okeanis became the new owners of their shares. Both companies were established on the same day in November 2018, by the same lawyer.

Among the owners of the Hungarian companies were Peter Schatz and Agnes Adamik, who later changed her name to Agnes Kovacs. They both previously worked for the Hungarian state broadcaster. Also involved was Arpad Habony, as a co-owner of Hungary’s Modern Media Group.

Ripost and Modern Media Group left Nova24TV when two companies Hespereia and Okeanis became the new owners of their shares. Both companies were established on the same day in November 2018, by the same lawyer. One of the companies, Hesperia, is owned by Agnes Kovacs. 

Nova24TV is co-owned by members of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), which is headed by the current premier, Janez Jansa, one of the main allies of Hungarian Prime Minister Orban in the EU. The investment was reportedly backed by Karoly Varga in 2016, a billionaire whose construction companies have been among the biggest winners of the public contracts handed out by the Hungarian government in recent years. 

Following that deal, Peter Schatz’s R-post-R acquired a majority share in Nova obzorja, the publisher of Demokracija, a political weekly co-owned by the SDS. 

 Macedonian charges made against Hungarians

Macedonian financial police have filed charges against Peter Schatz for tax evasion, BIRN has learned.

The financial police told BIRN Schatz made illegal gains for himself and his company CHS Invest Group, which is a majority owner of Alfa TV.
 “[Schatz] did not report revenues in the total amount of 11,959,475 denars (around 190,000 euros),” the police said.

According to the police, Schatz damaged the budget of North Macedonia to the tune of around 19,000 euros.
 
The investigation into money laundering against Schatz is still ongoing. In August last year, the financial police asked the Public Prosecutor’s Office to freeze the money held by another Schatz company, Target Media Skopje, because of suspicion it was being used for the transfer of potentially dirty money from Slovenia and Hungary.

Despite those suspicions, and an official request, the money was not “frozen ”. “The legal entity Target Media is used only in order to transfer funds directly from foreign legal entities to Alfa TV,” the financial police said.

According to the police, the companies that were used for money transfers were Ripost Zaloznistvo from Ljubljana and Ripost Media in Hungary.

“[They] do not have any employees, their financing comes from sources of dubious origin, ie. there is a suspicion of a crime, abuse of official position and authority, and the funds transferred to the Republic of North Macedonia by these foreign entities are performed in order to conceal that they originate from a possible crime, using invoices for suspicious marketing services,” added the financial police.
 
Peter Schatz didn’t respond to BIRN’s request for comment.

Just as their media buying spree in Slovenia focused on outlets close to Jansa, Schatz’s and Adamik’s investments in North Macedonia have been aimed at those close to another of Orban’s political allies, the former prime minister Nikola Gruevski. 

Since 2017, Hungarian interests have taken over websites kurir.mk, denesen.mk and vistina.mk; First republika Dooel Skopje, which publishes the portal republika.mk; and the LD Press media Skopje, which publishes the portal netpress.com.mk. Hungarian interests also own the broadcaster Alfa TV.

The moves by these Hungarian investors who are close to the Fidesz party, which is hostile to independent media back home and has orchestrated the co-opting or killing off of critical media outlets there, has inevitably caused concern among some observers. 

Four members of the European Parliament – Kati Piri, Tanja Fajon, Tonino Picula and Andreas Schieder – submitted a list questions to the European Commission earlier this year about these Hungarian media investments and whether they represent Hungarian interference in the democratic process in the Balkans. 

On November 25, the European Parliament hosted a plenary debate, “Hungarian interference in the media in Slovenia and North Macedonia”, where Vera Jourova, vice-president of the European Commission, addressed those questions.

“Concerning North Macedonia,” Jourova said, “the Commission and the EU delegation are following the developments in the media sector in the country very closely. The Commission reports on these issues in its regular enlargement packages, including in its latest 2020 report on North Macedonia. This report assessed that greater transparency on media ownership and possible illegal media concentration is required.”

Kati Piri, a Hungarian-born Dutch politician and MEP, went further, claiming it was no surprise that Hungarian leaders, with Slovenian assistance, have put together an international interference operation that has poured millions of euros into pro-Jansa and pro-Gruevski media organisations. “[W]e all know very well that Orban’s outrageous propaganda efforts in North Macedonia and Slovenia are just the tip of the iceberg. Whether in Brussels, Ljubljana or in Skopje, Orban has only one goal: undermining the European Union for his own personal gain,” she stated.

Yet Balazs Hidveghi, an MEP for Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, refuted this, arguing that these companies have invested capital in the media of other member states purely for profit, in line with one of the most basic principles of the EU – the free movement of capital. “The same is true for North Macedonia: investments are private business matters for media companies, and they have nothing to do with politics,” Hidveghi insisted.

Viktor Orban leaves after the second day of the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, in July 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/JOHN THYS / POOL

The editor of the Hungarian-owned Demokracija magazine in Slovenia, Joze Biscak, backs this view, telling BIRN that Hungarian investors are “only here for the money”. 

Indeed, a BIRN investigation shows that while the competition struggles, Hungarian-owned media outlets in the region are flourishing. Their combined revenue in Slovenia and North Macedonia in 2018 was more than 10 million euros, according to data obtained by BIRN.

However, research commissioned by BIRN shows that the Hungarian investments are not having much of an impact. 

BIRN tasked the social media consultancy Bakamo with analysing the content engagement of Hungary-linked media in Slovenia and North Macedonia, and comparing it with other media. 

It found that the Hungary-linked media generate less engagement than their local counterparts on topics like the EU, Russia, China and Orban himself. The only two topics where the audience in North Macedonia engaged slightly more with Hungary-linked media outlets concerned stories related to migration and LGBT communities.

For three months, researchers at Bakamo observed content on websites linked to Hungarian-owned media outlets, identifying them as “Orban-media” (as opposed to “Non-Orban media”). The Orban-media included six Hungarian-owned media outlets in North Macedonia and three in Slovenia. In order to get a fuller picture, Bakamo included 18 additional news outlets in Slovenia founded and operated by SDS members that often share their content with the Hungarian-owned media outlets.

“Readers of Non-Orban media outlets аге more active on social media and engage with the content at а higher rate than Orban-media readers,” the analysis concluded.

According to the research, this means people in Slovenia and North Macedonia, as well as in Hungary, are less moved by what the media linked to Orban are telling them. “Higher engagement means that Non-Orban media articles receive more likes and shares on social media platforms,” the analysis said. 

It’s not for lack of trying, though. “Orban-media outlets produce a lot more content than Non-Orban ones. They act almost like spam in an attempt to build reach,” the research showed. 

The researchers focused on six key topics: migration, the EU, Russia, LGBT communities, China and Orban. On almost all topics, Orban-media outlets were underperforming in terms of driving a discourse, compared to media not linked to Orban.

The two topics where Orban-media outperformed their competition in North Macedonia were migration and LGBT. 

In Slovenia, on the other hand, while causing less engagement, Hungary-owned media outlets have produced much more heated conversations. “Orban-media readers are more emotionally charged,” the research concluded.

In the black

Viktor Orban (C) with Slovenia’s current Prime Minister and leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS, Janez Jansa (R), and SDS MEP, Milan Zver (R), attending a SDS campaign event in Celje, Slovenia, in May 2018. Photo: EPA

Despite the apparent lack of impact, Hungarian-owned media are still generating significant revenues. 

In 2018, according to available data, in North Macedonia, Hungarian-owned media companies posted revenues of more than 3 million euros, while in Slovenia that amount was around 7.3 million euros.

According to data from the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services, the profits of TV Alfa in 2017 were around 27,400 euros. In 2018, that had grown to almost 485,000 euros and in 2019 to almost 640,000 euros. The profits of TV Sitel – the most-watched station in North Macedonia – fell from 770,000 euros in 2017 to around 462,600 euros in 2019. 

The situation is similar with the Macedonian online portals that are owned by Hungarian investors: kurir.mk, denesen.mk and vistina.mk. The revenues of the parent company EM Media almost tripled in 2018 from 2017. 

The Hungarians also improved the financial results of Slovenian media companies. The revenues of NTV24 more than doubled from around 778,000 euros in 2017, to 1.76 million euros in 2019. By comparison, Planet TV, which at the time was still under Slovenian ownership with many more viewers than Nova24TV, made losses in the millions in 2018.

Similarly, revenues of Nova obzorja, the publisher of Demokracija, in 2018 reached their highest level in its 20-year history since Peter Schatz bought a majority stake in 2017. 

Joze Biscak, editor of Demokracija, told BIRN that those profits are the only thing that interests Hungarian investors. “If the balance sheets are in the black, they are happy. If they sink into the red, they are not,” Biscak stated.

He also defended his anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-leftwing editorial decisions that create the heated discussions that Bakamo identified as merely a means “to sell magazines and clicks.” 

How to get ahead in advertising


The headquarters of the company which advertises olive oil in North Macedonia, Olivery Kft, in the Budapest suburb of Budaors. Photo: Anita Vorak

However, the sources of the money that keep those balance sheets in the black, at least in North Macedonia, remains questionable.

According to an earlier BIRN report, major advertisers in the Hungarian-owned media in North Macedonia included small Hungarian companies like Olivery, which sells olive oil; Bonyart, which sells home decorations; and Skin Delight, a cosmetics company. None of them actually sells anything in stores in North Macedonia.

The advertisement contracts that have resulted in the extraordinary financial gains in such a short period are now attracting the attention of the police in both Slovenia and North Macedonia. 

The Slovenian police confirmed that they opened an investigation into the financing of “certain media companies” in 2018. 

In addition, the previous Slovenian government appointed a special parliamentary commission to investigate allegations of suspected illegal Hungarian financing of SDS and illegal foreign financing of the SDS parliamentary election campaign in 2018. Those investigations were expected to bring some answers on how Hungarian money was being transferred to the Slovenian and Macedonian media, and how it was being used to finance the party-propaganda machinery. 

However, the new Slovenian government that took office in March – a coalition of Jansa’s SDS with the Modern Centre Party, New Slovenia and Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia – replaced the chairman of the parliamentary commission, which consequently hasn’t been particularly active this year. 

The Slovenian police confirmed to BIRN on November 23 that their investigation is ongoing, but said it could not comment further.

Serbian Journalists’ NGO Accuses Ruling MPs of ‘Lynching’ Critics

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A media foundation named after a murdered journalist has accused MPs from the ruling party of creating a lynch-like atmosphere towards anyone who dares to criticise the government.

In the last week, several Serbian Progressive Party MPs during parliamentary sessions have attacked media outlets, actors and civil society activists, calling them, among other things, “anti-state” elements and “traitors”, and calling on some people to leave the country.

Slavko Curuvija Foundation, which bears the name of a famous Serbian journalist murdered in 1999, on Wednesday warned of the lynch-like atmosphere being created towards everyone who was critical of the regime.

“We are appalled by the daily abuse of the parliamentary rostrum, which launches shameless attacks on anyone who does not belong to the corps of ruling parties and their satellites: from opposition leaders, through independent regulatory bodies, civil society organisations and prominent artists, to doctors and journalists,” the Foundation said in a statement.

It emphasized that the new parliament, composed only of MPs from the ruling parties, instead of conducting its legislative role, was being used to attack anyone who thinks differently, warning that this could lead to physical violence.

“In a deeply polarised society, poisoned by … aggression in public discourse, we fear that such messages from parliament could be a prelude to direct physical confrontations with dissidents,” the Slavko Curuvija Foundation stressed, recalling that threats to independent journalists had been made almost on a weekly basis in recent months.

In the last few days numerous SNS MPs have called the media outlets N1 television and Nova S media portal “anti-state” elements, “anti-Serbian”, “traitors” and “foreign mercenaries”.

SNS MP Marko Atlagic also attacked the actress Seka Sablic after she gave an interview to the weekly NIN in which she criticized the government, saying that she “did not possess any patriotic feelings”. Atlagic also attacked another actor and director, Dragan Bjelogrlic, after he supported Sabljic, claiming that he should leave the country, as he allegedly threatened to do earlier.

Serbian media outlets and civil society organisations have long complained of being targeted by the government for their work. Most recently, they accused the government of trying to silence its critics after it emerged that a department of Serbia’s finance ministry, tasked with tackling money laundering and terrorism financing, had asked banks to hand over data about the transactions of dozens of individuals and NGOs known for their work on human rights, transparency and exposing corruption.

The move has been criticized also by international rights watchdog Amnesty International and by UN human rights experts.

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