The Swiss voice in the world since 1935
Top stories
Stay in touch with Switzerland

Swiss federal administration hit by hacker attack

Federal administration affected by hacker attack
Federal administration affected by hacker attack Keystone-SDA

Hackers have attacked the Swiss federal administration. Among other things, telephones, email and various federal websites and specialist applications were affected. No data was leaked, according to the federal government.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

As a result of the attack, the federal administration was affected by a disruption to its IT systems for around 45 minutes on Friday morning, the media office of the Federal Office of Information Technology and Telecommunications (FOITT) told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. The news portal Blick.ch first reported on the incident.

Thanks to “countermeasures, the situation was stabilised”, the FOITT continued.

+ Explainer: how vulnerable is Switzerland to cyber-attacks?

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks involve overloading websites and applications with targeted requests so that they are no longer accessible. No data would flow out during a DDoS attack. The FOITT and the Federal Office for Cybersecurity (FOCBS) are jointly analysing the attack and defining the appropriate measures, according to the statement.

The federal administration has already been targeted by hackers on several occasions, including during the Ukraine conference at Bürgenstock in June 2024, when overload attacks on federal websites were detected. According to the FOCBS, these came from pro-Russian hackers.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

The start of the holiday season means long traffic jams on the Gotthard

More

Gotthard traffic queue hits 11km at start of holiday season

This content was published on The start of the summer holidays saw a long traffic jam in front of the Gotthard tunnel on Saturday. Traffic jams between Erstfeld and Göschenen in canton Uri were up to 11 kilometres long early in the morning.

Read more: Gotthard traffic queue hits 11km at start of holiday season
Study: Rhine could become up to 4.2 degrees warmer by 2100

More

Rhine could warm by 4°C by 2100, scientists warn

This content was published on The water temperature of the Rhine River could rise by up to 4.2° degrees Celsius by the end of the century due to the warming planet, scientists warn.

Read more: Rhine could warm by 4°C by 2100, scientists warn
'Leopard 1 A5' combat tanks in Germany.

More

Switzerland eyes joining EU rearmament programme

This content was published on The Federal Council wants to explore the possibilities of joining the European Union’s €800-billion rearmament programme without compromising Swiss neutrality.

Read more: Switzerland eyes joining EU rearmament programme
Premiere for Swiss Air Force on French National Day

More

Premiere for Swiss Air Force on French National Day

This content was published on On July 14, the Swiss Air Force will take part in the traditional air parade in Paris to mark the French bank holidays with an F/A-18 fighter jet. This is a first for Switzerland.

Read more: Premiere for Swiss Air Force on French National Day

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR