No Break-In at the President's Office, but the System Had Weaknesses: Prosecutors Close the Case

The Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption has closed the story of the alleged break-in into the computer system of the Office of President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. The conclusion: no evidence of a crime. But the decision also contains a sentence that deserves more attention than the conclusion itself.

The procedure followed every rule. On an order from the Basic Criminal Court, the computer equipment was secured, IT forensic analyses were carried out on it, data from mobile devices was checked, and people familiar with the incident were interviewed. The Interior Ministry's Cybercrime Unit found no digital traces of unauthorised access to the system, and no evidence that anyone had recorded or collected classified data.

The prosecutor therefore concluded that the elements were not met for "Disclosure of a State Secret" under Article 317, nor for "Damaging and Unauthorised Access to a Computer System" under Article 251 of the Criminal Code, nor for any other crime prosecuted ex officio.

The holes that remain

And now the sentence that must not get lost. The analyses found "certain security and administrative weaknesses in the configuration of the system", which, according to the prosecution, could pose a potential security risk. Put simply: no burglar was found, but the doors weren't properly locked.

We're talking about the office of the head of state, an institution through which pass documents that by definition aren't for everyone. If the Interior Ministry's forensic experts found weaknesses there, the natural question is who configured that system, who was supposed to oversee it, and whether anyone is already working on a fix.

The prosecution has done its job - it prosecutes crimes, it doesn't repair servers. But someone in the state needs to answer whether the holes have been closed. Or will we wait for the next criminal complaint to find out?