Εθνική Υπηρεσία Πληροφοριών (ΕΥΠ)

The Ethniki Ypiresia Pliroforion (EYP), known in English as the Hellenic National Intelligence Service, serves as Greece's primary civilian intelligence agency with its headquarters located in Greece. Its core mandate involves the collection, analysis, and dissemination of foreign intelligence and the protection of state secrets, operating under the authority of the Greek government to safeguard national security. The agency's existence and role are confirmed through its common aliases and its identification as a target in a significant cyber incident. A defining public event for the organization occurred on January 17, 2020, when it was among multiple Greek government and private sector entities disrupted by a large-scale cyber-attack. This incident involved denial-of-service techniques that caused widespread outages, forcing authorities to disconnect affected servers to mitigate the damage. The attack specifically impacted intelligence services, government websites, and businesses, with the Greek parliament website remaining offline for a period and disruptions to foreign affairs systems potentially hindering diplomatic communications. The Turkish hacker group Anka Neferler claimed responsibility, stating the attack was retaliation for geopolitical disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Crucially, the attack was designed for disruption rather than data exfiltration, as no evidence of data theft was reported.

In direct response to the initial attack, the hacktivist collective Anonymous Greece launched retaliatory operations against Turkish targets. These counter-attacks resulted in the compromise of Turkish email services, government Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems, and emergency call infrastructure. Following the dual wave of attacks, official investigations were initiated to attribute the incidents and understand the full scope of the breaches. However, these investigations faced a significant evidentiary hurdle, as forensic analysis of the affected Greek servers failed to uncover direct evidence linking the perpetrators, specifically the Anka Neferler group, to the compromised systems. The 2020 event therefore stands as a documented episode of cyber conflict involving the EYP, illustrating its position as a target within broader geopolitical cyber tensions and highlighting the disruptive potential of denial-of-service campaigns against national critical infrastructure. The incident underscores the agency's exposure to politically motivated cyber operations originating from regional adversaries.