Czech police and intelligence services said on Monday they had busted a Russian espionage network operating through its Prague embassy.
It was allegedly set up to attack Czech and foreign targets through computer servers.
“The network was completely destroyed and decimated,” Michal Koudelka, head of the Czech Republic’s BIS intelligence service, said in parliament, quoted by the Czech CTK news agency.
He said it was part of another chain created by Russia in other European countries, without naming them.
“It was created by people with links to Russian intelligence services and financed from Russia and the Russian embassy,” Koudelka said.
The National Organised Crime Centre (NCOZ), which helped bust the network, refused comment when contacted by AFP, citing ongoing criminal proceedings in the matter.
In September, the Czech intelligence agency NUKIB said Russia and China posed the biggest threat to cybersecurity in the Czech Republic, an ex-communist country that joined NATO in 1999.
It added that China was behind a major cyber attack on a key government institution in the Czech Republic last year.
In August, the Denik N daily said Russian military intelligence (GRU) was most probably behind the latest attack on the foreign ministry which took place in June.
In its report for 2017, the NUKIB warned Russian and Chinese diplomats had stepped up their spying activities on Czech soil.
This sparked criticism from the pro-Chinese, pro-Russian, anti-Muslim Czech President Milos Zeman who called on the intelligence agency to look for Muslim terrorists on Czech territory instead.

More from AFP
- UK Minister Warns Meta Over End-to-End Encryption
- ‘Cybersecurity Incident’ Hits ICC
- China Says No Law Banning iPhone Use in Govt Agencies
- Spies, Hackers, Informants: How China Snoops on the West
- Meta Fights Sprawling Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ Operation
- Two Men Arrested Following Poland Railway Hacking
- UK Court Concludes Teenager Behind Huge Hacking Campaign
- Suspected N. Korean Hackers Target S. Korea-US Drills
Latest News
- Researchers Discover Attempt to Infect Leading Egyptian Opposition Politician With Predator Spyware
- In Other News: New Analysis of Snowden Files, Yubico Goes Public, Election Hacking
- China’s Offensive Cyber Operations in Africa Support Soft Power Efforts
- Air Canada Says Employee Information Accessed in Cyberattack
- BIND Updates Patch Two High-Severity DoS Vulnerabilities
- Faster Patching Pace Validates CISA’s KEV Catalog Initiative
- SANS Survey Shows Drop in 2023 ICS/OT Security Budgets
- Apple Patches 3 Zero-Days Likely Exploited by Spyware Vendor to Hack iPhones
