Turkey to build ‘cyber army’ to defend against hack attacks

The Turkish government has decided to establish a “cyber army” to be ready for countering any possible cyber attack, noting that such attacks are extremely dangerous to Turkey’s security and economy, state-run Anadolu reported yesterday.

Commenting on the recent global ransomware attack, Turkish Transportation and Communications Minister Ahmet Arslan said:

We survived these recent attacks unharmed as a country. However, they may pose a bigger threat and danger in the following days.

He added “That is why we are strengthening our infrastructure all the time,” noting that “some 13,000 white hat hackers came to work in the public sector.”

In comments to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Arslan said: “We are building a cyber army with five groups…We formed centres and teams to intervene in cyber incidents starting from 2013. We led the way for the formation of these centres and teams in all institutions, not just the public sector.”

According to Anadolu, Turkey was subject to more than 90 million cyber attacks during one year, noting that the rate of such attacks increased by 2.5 per cent after the failed coup attempt in July last year.