The investigation into the largest data leak in the history of CSDD may reveal a possible conflict of interest. This was stated by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs in an interview with the Latvian Television program "Morning Panorama." According to the head of government, he has information that the same person simultaneously held a position related to ensuring IT cybersecurity at CSDD and worked for a company that provided server services to the directorate. Kulbergs called this situation "an absolute conflict of interest." At the same time, he emphasized that he is not drawing final conclusions or accusing specific individuals. According to him, all the circumstances presented must be thoroughly verified, and the prosecution will provide the appropriate assessment. The Prime Minister also sharply criticized the organization of CSDD's information systems protection. Figuratively describing the situation, he stated that the directorate effectively "opened the doors" to its cybersecurity and then tasked an external company with monitoring who was penetrating the system. According to Kulbergs, instead of more reliable protection mechanisms, such as two-factor authentication, ordinary login and password were used. He also reminded that CSDD rejected an offer from Cert.lv to monitor abnormal activity in its IT systems for free. These statements are important because the organization of the protection system is now becoming one of the main questions of the investigation. Not only the fact of the cyberattack is being checked, but also whether all necessary measures were taken to prevent such incidents. Commenting on the attack itself, the Prime Minister noted that the perpetrator apparently possessed a high level of qualification. According to him, data was extracted in small volumes, making it significantly more difficult to detect such activity. It should be noted that as a result of the cyberattack, personal data of 1.2 million people and information about approximately 200,000 legal entities were stolen from CSDD systems. The leak affected information about payments made to the directorate over the past 18 years. After the incident, the management of CSDD faced personnel losses: on August 19, the council and the board of the enterprise announced their resignation. At the same time, Minister of Transport Rihards Kozlovskis ordered an expedited internal investigation, during which the contract between CSDD and the company Tet for cybersecurity services will also be reviewed. In addition, the President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, appealed to the Attorney General to investigate the actions of CSDD officials responsible for personal data protection. The investigation is ongoing, and final conclusions about the causes of the cyberattack, as well as the possible responsibility of specific individuals, have not yet been made.
