Swiss probe intelligence leaks to Russia
The ministry was responding to revelations by the public broadcaster SRF, based on an internal report from the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), which said an officer in charge of the cyber team allegedly transmitted highly sensitive information to the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky -- which then ended up in the hands of Russia's GRU spy agency.
Two friendly intelligence services alerted FIS officials to the leaks, the public broadcaster said.
They threatened to "cease cooperation with the FIS if the employee continued to work for the FIS", the broadcaster quoted the intelligence service's internal report as saying, due to the danger these leaks posed to their own operations.
The case spans from 2014-2015 to at least the end of 2020, according to SRF.
The Swiss officer justified the collaboration with Kaspersky by citing a need for access to cyber tools that the small FIS -- which has a few hundred employees -- could not provide due to lack of expertise and resources.
The officer in question ultimately left the service in 2020.
For Swiss defence minister Martin Pfister, a reliable intelligence service is of paramount importance for Switzerland's protection, "especially in the current global situation marked by insecurity", his ministry told Keystone-ATS.
Pfister has launched an administrative investigation led by an external and independent body, which will go over the work of previous investigations -- including those done within the FIS.
The collaboration with Kaspersky is surprising for a Western intelligence service, as many experts believe the cybersecurity giant has ties to Russian intelligence.
In 2024, the United States banned Kaspersky products and services from US territory.
Kaspersky has always firmly denied any links between its cybersecurity services and Russian spy agencies.
vog/rjm/jhb
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Poland Scrambles Jets as Russia Launches Strikes on Ukraine
Ukraine faced another Russian drone and missile attack early Monday, with air raid alerts sounding across the country for at least six hours since midnight Kyiv time. Neighboring Poland scrambled its military jets, while Lithuanian media LRT cited local police as saying that an unidentified type of unmanned aircraft had entered its territory from Belarus.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Confronted by crises, Philippine president delivers state of the nation speech
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is delivering his state of the nation speech while confronting diverse crises midway through his six-year term, including recent deadly storms with more than 120,000 people encamped in emergency shelters, turbulent ties with the vice president and escalating territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. About 22,000 policemen were deployed Monday to secure the House of Representatives complex in suburban Quezon city in the capital region before Marcos' address to both chambers of Congress, top government and military officials and diplomats. Thousands of protesters staged rallies to highlight a wide range of demands from higher wages due to high inflation to the immediate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte over a raft of alleged crimes. Marcos' rise to power in mid-2022, more than three decades after an army-backed 'People Power' revolt overthrew his father from office and into global infamy, was one of the most dramatic political comebacks. But he inherited a wide range of problems, including an economy that was one of the worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which worsened poverty, unemployment, inflation and hunger. His whirlwind political alliance with Duterte rapidly floundered and she and her family, including her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, became her harshest critics. The former president was arrested in March in a chaotic scene at Manila's international airport and flown to be detained by the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands for an alleged crime against humanity over his deadly anti-drugs crackdowns while still in power. Sara Duterte became the first vice president of the Philippines to be impeached in February by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by Marcos' allies, over a range of criminal allegations including largescale corruption and publicly threatening to have the president, his wife and Romualdez killed by an assassin if she herself were killed during her disputes with them. The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the impeachment case was unconstitutional due to a key procedural technicality, hampering Duterte's expected trial in the Senate, which has convened as an impeachment tribunal. House legislators said they were planning to appeal the decision. Unlike his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who nurtured cozy ties with China and Russia, Marcos broadened his country's treaty alliance with the United States and started to deepen security alliances with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada France and other Western governments to strengthen deterrence against increasingly aggressive actions by China in the disputed South Chin Sea. That stance has strained relations between Manila and Beijing. Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the Marcos administration would continue to shift the military's role from battling a weakening communist insurgency to focusing on external defense, specially in the disputed South China Sea, a vital global trade route where confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces have intensified in recent years. 'The president's statements were, we would be unyielding and resistant to Chinese aggression in the West Philippines Sea,' Teodoro said in an interview by the ABS-CBN TV network, using the Philippine name for the stretch of disputed waters off the western Philippine coast. 'We've been gearing up towards that mission.' After returning to Manila, Marcos traveled to an evacuation center outside Manila to help distribute food and other aid to villagers displaced by back-to-back storms and days of monsoon downpours that have flooded vast stretches of the main northern Luzon region, including Manila.
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
NATO fighter jets scrambled as Russia attacks Ukraine
A local woman walks past the site of a drone strike on a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 21, 2025. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA July 28 (UPI) -- NATO aircraft were scrambled Sunday night to respond to a Russian attack on Ukraine, the Polish military said Monday. "Polish and allied quick reaction aircraft were scrambled, and ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness," Poland's Operational Command of the Armed Forces said in a statement. "These actions are preventive in nature and are aimed at securing airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened region." A few hours later, it issued a statement that the aircraft had concluded their deployment, adding that "no violations of Polish airspace were observed." Swedish fighter jets stationed in Poland were among the aircraft scrambled, it said. The Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement on Telegram on Monday that Russia launched 324 drones and seven missiles overnight, resulting in 311 of the attacks being either shot down or suppressed by electronic warfare. "There were confirmed impacts of two missiles of various types and 15 strike UAVs at three locations," it said. Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine's Office of the President, said in a statement on X that some of the Russian aerial strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including in the capital Kyiv. "He wants nothing but war and Ukraine's defeat," he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "But defeat is not an option." "Russia and its satellites are also testing NATO's response," he added. "Drones entering the airspace of the Baltic states are signals that must not be ignored."
