Parliament website under attack, delays publishing of PEPs list

Parliament on Monday said its website was under attack by a Turkish hacker and it would upload the promised list on bad loans of politically exposed persons (PEPs) and other information as soon as conditions allow.

“All the necessary actions are being taken to stop the attacks, without this having affected the website of the parliament so far, but at this time, as it is understood, the website cannot be updated,” an announcement said.

Parliament said that its website had been under attack by a Turkish hacker during the past few hours just in the same way the websites of the defence ministry and the electronic systems of the Larnaca airport had been recently.

It added that material of the day such as the agendas of committee sessions and other material, as well as the publication of minutes of last Friday’ session with the PEPs report and the Audit Office’s list “will be posted as soon as the situation allows”.

Parliament on Friday approved publication of a list with the names of politically exposed persons with bad debts at the former co-op bank, which includes mostly former MPs but also a few sitting ones. The list is part of an audit service report into Kedipes, the entity that replaced the co-op, and took over some €7.5 billion in non-performing loans.

According to the report, PEPs had substantial loan amounts written off or swapped debt for assets of lower value, among others. The audit service identified PEP cases involving €4.2 million in write-offs, €3m in loan balances that would be written off under certain conditions, and €4.9m in debt for asset swaps.