In the coming years, cyber threats will remain at the current level or even slightly increase, Valdis Vancovics, Chairman of the Board of the mobile operator Tele2, told LETA in an interview.
“The geopolitical situation is changing rapidly, and it looks like the peaceful life of years ago has come to an end, with more and more attempts of various cyber-related events and threats,” Vancovics said.
He pointed out that in the last six months Tele2 has added internet security offerings to its portfolio, including the introduction of the Internet Security service. In March, this system prevented ten million threats to customers.
Speaking about the most typical threats faced by the company’s customers, Vancovics said that it is mostly the desire to extort customer data in order to obtain money or something else. There are threats related to extortion, such as blocking a customer’s device or applications.
For example, in March, the most common threats were malware attacks, attempts to lure customers into fake websites, and phishing, or fraudulent activities aimed at obtaining data.
“We have a solution that allows us to fight this, we work with partners that allow us to prevent most of these attacks,” Vancovics added.
He also noted that the last few years have been difficult, with many major events that have had a very serious impact on business, especially with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Logistics, energy resources and geopolitics all complicate life for telecom operators.
“It’s no secret that operators, including us, are now looking for new sources of business,” added Vancovics, explaining that telecom services are the company’s core business, but the company is also trying to tap into what it calls inorganic growth.
He said Tele2 has become an insurance provider, a content provider and a provider of internet security services. The company has a number of areas that it is consciously trying to develop in order to balance its core business with new things.
As an operator, Tele2 mostly faces attempts to organize DDoS attacks, where a huge volume of requests is sent from infected devices over the internet to websites, thus “capturing” and blocking them, Vancovics explained.
As reported, Tele2’s turnover increased by 9.5 percent last year to EUR 176.4 million, according to preliminary data.
Tele2 was registered in November 1995 and has a share capital of EUR 3.486 million. Tele2 is solely owned by Tele2 Sverige of Sweden.
Source: BNS
(Reproduction of BNS information in mass media and other websites without written consent of BNS is prohibited.)