The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Adil Karaismailoğlu announced on Sunday that cyberattacks towards Turkey dropped to 84,113 in 2021, from 118,470 in 2020. The minister vowed to keep strengthening its “cyber shield” with locally-developed applications against cyberattacks, crediting it with staving off the attacks.
The minister said in a written statement that cyber intervention teams called SOME were coordinating responses around the clock to attacks under the leadership of The National Cybersecurity Intervention Center (USOM). Teams are composed of more than 8,000 cyber security experts who work to detect malicious links and cut off access to critical infrastructure by hackers.
Turkey also employs Kasırga, Avcı and Azad, components of a software infrastructure to combat cyberattacks. The programs employ machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to remain up-to-date against cyber threats.
Karaismailoğlu said last year they detected 750 “fake” conference apps mimicking original apps and launched “necessary procedures” against them. “At a time of uptick in remote working practices, programs, interfaces used by those working from home were scanned and 46,784 security flaws were detected last year,” the minister said. He noted that they also scanned domain names related to COVID-19 pandemic and discovered 612 malicious software embedded there. He added that they also discovered 2,975 Trojan droppers as well exploiting COVID-19 pandemic to target people’s search for information regarding the virus.
