Vol. 529 No. 1
213 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources the number of occasions on which viruses occurred in incoming e-mails in his Department in the past 12 months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2536/01]
214 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources the number of occasions on which hackers have attempted to breach his Department's e-mail security in the past 12 months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2551/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 213 and 214 together.
My Department is aware of the risks posed by e-mail viruses and hackers and has put in place security technologies designed to protect the Department's networks from intrusion attempts. There are no recorded attempts to hack into the Department's networks. A combination of all traffic being routed through the Government intranet, together with firewall technology, minimises the risk of this occurring.
All e-mails arriving into the Department's network are scanned for possible viruses. In the past year more than 200 e-mails containing viruses were detected and stopped. There is no reason to believe there was any malicious intent by the sender of any of these e-mails, as modern e-mail viruses can send mail without the knowledge of the computer user.
