Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 8 Feb 2001

Vol. 530 No. 2

Written Answers. - Departmental E-mail System.

Bernard J. Durkan

Question:

47 Mr. Durkan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the nature of the material introduced via the e-mail system in her Department referred to her in reply to Parliamentary Question No. 178 of 30 January 2001; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3388/01]

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney):

In my response to Parliamentary Question No. 178 of 30 January 2001, I indicated that my Department experienced a breach of e-mail security on two separate occasions within the past 12 months. The nature of the e-mail breach was what is commonly referred to in the industry as "spamming". "Spamming" arises when an external e-mail is deliberately configured and sent to a mail server in order to dupe the mail server into thinking it is an e-mail coming from within the organisation. Consequently the mail server treats the e-mail as a normal e-mail and sends it to the nominated external addresses.

The effect of this, in my Department's case, was that e-mails were distributed to a number of external addressees and, from the recipients' perspective, the e-mails appeared to originate from my Department. However, I would emphasise that at no point was the integrity of my Department's internal systems breached and the e-mails were never actually introduced internally within the mail system in my Department. As regards the two e-mails that were circulated externally, the content of one appeared to be a "spoof" advertisement for driving instructions and the other did not have any body text material.