Before the United States notification, the Portuguese government did not even know about it.

According to today's Russian TV (RT) website reported on the 8th, Portugal's Diaario de Noticias reported that the General Staff of the Portuguese Armed Forces was "lasted for a long time and unprecedented" network attack, which led a large number of NATO confidential documents. The newspaper stated that the Portuguese government did not even know the Internet attack before receiving the United States notice.

Russian RT website report screenshot

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the cyber attack called "extremely serious" by the Portuguese authorities was exposed because the US intelligence department found that "hundreds" of NATO's confidential or secret documents were sold on the dark online. It is reported that in August 2021, the United States directly informed the Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

A spokesman at the US Embassy in Lisbon neither confirmed nor denied the report, saying that they would not comment on intelligence issues.

Data map source: Visual China

The newspaper pointed out that the Portuguese Armed Forces General Staff Department has conducted a comprehensive review of its internal system and successfully found those computers that were stolen by NATO documents. The department also found that regulations related to the security transmission of confidential documents were not observed. Sources revealed that "this network attack lasts for a long time and has not been noticed. It also uses a small program (BOTS) that can detect file types." The extraction of information is performed in several stages.

The Portuguese News Daily also said that NATO will ask the Portuguese government to explain and give guarantee. An unnamed official in Portugal said that the government can guarantee that the Portuguese armed forces will "work every day so that Portugal will not be damaged as a member of NATO's founding member."

RT mentioned that at the end of August, NATO announced that it was investigating MBDA missiles by hackers. According to media reports, hackers put the weapon design maps used in the Russian -Ukraine conflict on the dark network for sale. (Edit: HHJ)

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