Former head of Moldova’s Electronic Governance Agency, Nicoleta Colomeet, submitted her resignation on her own initiative after data belonging to 750,000 Moldovans was stolen, according to Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu. He said the authorities must strengthen efforts to secure government systems.
The Parliament speaker noted that national systems had previously withstood cyberattacks. At the same time, he said the authorities must identify vulnerabilities and mistakes.
“The resignation announced yesterday was probably more of an honourable resignation. Someone has to take responsibility for this. (…) We need to assess the situation and see where the breaches occurred. We need to determine whether all protocols were followed and whether all requirements were met. I am not a specialist, so I cannot say how large this attack was. But we need to understand why we managed to anticipate other attacks. Perhaps they were less sophisticated or targeted different systems. Banks, for example, thankfully withstood the attacks. This means there needs to be better cooperation between the banking system, the state’s information systems, the Public Services Agency, other registers and so on,” Igor Grosu said.
Nicoleta Colomeet’s resignation was announced on October 28 by Prime Minister Vasile Tofan. The head of government said he had reached an agreement with the official for her to leave her position.