The extent of the damage is still being investigated by the National Security Office, but suspicions of the breach of security that facilitated the exfiltration of secret NATO documents fall on EMGFA, secret military and MDN computers.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMGFA), commanded by the Chief of Staff, Admiral Silva Ribeiro, was the target of a “prolonged and unprecedented cyberattack” that resulted in the exfiltration of classified NATO documents.
The Portuguese government only found out because it was informed by the US Information Services , through the embassy in Lisbon, with a communication that would have been made directly to Prime Minister António Costa, last August.
According to sources who are following the case, which is considered to be of “extreme gravity”, it was US intelligence cyberspies that detected “ hundreds of documents sent by NATO to Portugal, classified as Secret and Confidential, for sale on the darkweb ”.
Faced with this information, the official spokeswoman for the US embassy in Lisbon does not deny it, simply stating: “We do not comment on intelligence matters”.
This cyber-crisis has been managed by Costa’s office, but several security-related structures are also actively involved, such as the National Security Office (GNS) and the Secretas Externas ( Service of Strategic Information for Defense ) and Internal ( Service Security Information ).
However, despite having reserved powers in the investigation of cybercrime, the Judiciary Police (PJ), at least until yesterday afternoon, had not been involved – questioned by the DN, he declined to comment.
NATO will have demanded explanations and guarantees from the Portuguese government and, next week, on behalf of António Costa, they should travel to NATO headquarters, in Brussels, for a high-level meeting at the NATO Office of Security, the secretary of State for Digitization and Administrative Modernization , Mário Campolargo, who oversees the GNS, and the Director-General of this Office, Vice Admiral Gameiro Marques , who is responsible for the security of classified information sent to our country.