Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 1029: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he is satisfied that personal information relating to members of the public held on his Departmental databases is safe from hackers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34277/07]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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My Department is very aware of the risks such as identity theft to individuals should their personal information be made available to criminal elements. Despite the fact that my Department holds very limited personal records relating to members of the public, it has invested heavily over a number of years in ensuring that every effort is made to maintain the security of those records.

Hackers generally gain access to networks through exploiting server vulnerabilities or through Trojan malware inadvertently installed by users. My Department has installed multi-layer electronic firewall defences backed up with electronic intrusion detection systems which actively monitor network traffic. These are tuned to identify network traffic which would indicate an attack. All internet traffic is scanned by three different technologies before being passed to a PC. Connections between my Department and other Departments or the Naval Service are across the private government network.

My Department's e-government website is subject to an annual audit by external security consultants who are charged with attempting to hack into the applications both from the public internet and the internal trusted networks. Any changes to that infrastructure will also be tested by external experts. My Department carries out some electronic sales via our websites. The credit card transaction is processed by a third party, and the card details are not recorded on any of our systems.