According to the Chamber’s Secretary General, Laurent Scheeck, it emerged on Thursday morning that the scope of the problem is not yet known, meaning security measures must remain in place for longer. It is not yet possible to say when systems will be restored. The Chamber had initially announced on Wednesday that both its website and the petitions platform would resume normal operations from 8am on Thursday.
The outage follows what authorities described as an attempted hacker attack. In response, all systems were shut down on Wednesday due to a “confirmed security risk”. No data had been stolen at that point, according to Laurent Scheeck.
Security measures will remain in place until it is certain that there is no longer any risk. While the timing coincides with a holiday period, limiting the immediate impact on parliamentary business, the petitions platform remains inaccessible. As a result, deadlines are expected to be extended, as has been done in the past.
The Chamber has previously faced a data leak and IT issues following a system update. However, a complete shutdown of all systems as a precautionary measure marks a first.
