Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 750: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number and the records kept by his Department of attempted hacking or suspected cyber attacks or other malicious computer security breaches committed against his Department's computer systems. [1730/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, all major computer networks are subject to attempted unauthorised access on a constant basis.

The Department deploys industry standard hardware, software (firewalls and anti-virus) and process to protect its network from attacks of the type referred to by the Deputy.

Due to the successful operation of these procedures, the only incidences of network vulnerability to have arisen in recent years were:

In 2003 the Departments network suffered an outbreak of the Welchia/NACHI network worm which caused serious network problems, but did not cause any loss of data. Remedial action was taken and the worm was eradicated. The outbreak did not affect the integrity of any DSFA data.

In 2002 a telephone hacking incident occurred but the Department reacted swiftly to the intrusion and quickly sealed off the danger area. It has since then undertaken a major telephony hardware and software upgrade to guard against further similar attacks.

No other network vulnerability issues have arisen since these incidents. Network protection processes and procedures are kept under constant review and are updated as appropriate when improvements can be made.