Written answers
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Department of Agriculture and Food
Data Protection
8:00 pm
Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 845: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of and the records kept by her Department of attempted hacking or suspected cyber attacks or other malicious computer security breaches committed against her Department's computer systems. [1718/08]
Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department, in common with other bodies with public facing websites, is subject to continuous attempted malicious cyber attacks and hacking attempts. All traffic including malicious traffic to the Department's website is recorded and stored in log files. My Department has put in place a robust Information Technology infrastructure, at both the hardware and software levels, to ensure that its computer systems are safe from hackers. A complex infrastructure consisting of firewalls, routers, and specialized software has been deployed to protect against intrusion by hackers, etc. A comprehensive anti-virus software system is in place, which protects the Department's computer systems, from e-mail borne computer viruses. As a further measure, the Department has put in place a contract for independent testing and verification, on an ongoing basis, of the security control measures that it has put in place. To date, the Department has not recorded any successful cyber attack or hacking attempt against its computer systems.
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