Romania’s Ministry for ICT has published a manual to raise government workers’ awareness of ICT security. The “Computer Security Guide for Civil Servants” is also meant as a starting point for public administration’s IT departments to produce similar guidelines and manuals.

The 32-page document explains to civil servants how to help keep their workstations, laptops and other computing devices secure, and what they can do to improve the security of these devices. The document outlines how to prevent unauthorised access to confidential information and details some of the dangers in more detail, describing threats such as ransomware, spyware and phishing.

The “Computer Security Guide for Civil Servants” aims to increase the confidentiality, integrity and availability of government data and information. Providing guidance and support helps government workers identify and reduce risks and vulnerabilities. “Increasing civil servants’ cybersecurity knowledge aids the security of public institutions”, the authors write in their introduction.

PLA Unit 61398

According to Romania’s Computer Emergency Response Team, at least one government institution was the target of computer attacks by APT1, which is believed to be a unit of China’s People's Liberation Army. In 2015, a central public administration organisation fell victim to ransomware. Computer attackers also targeted specific persons and procedures, the ICT ministry reports.

According to the ministry, most computer security incidents are linked to organised crime, groups of extremists, and state and non-state actors that try to gather key confidential government, military and economic information.

More information:

Announcement by the Ministry of ICT (in Romanian)
Computer Security Guide for Civil Servants (in Romanian)