Cyberattack knocks Belgium’s tax services offline ahead of filing deadline
Government services under attack.
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- Belgium shut down MyMinfin, Tax-on-web, and Biztax after detecting a cyberattack.
- Officials say attackers did not gain control of applications or access data.
- The finance agency extended the tax filing deadline to November 16 because of the disruption.
- The incident shows how contained cyberattacks can still disrupt essential government services.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Belgium’s federal finance agency has taken its MyMinfin tax portal and other digital services offline after a cyberattack, days before the October 31st tax filing deadline. Officials say they contained the intrusion before attackers could access data and have extended the filing deadline.
According to reports, the agency detected the intrusion within hours, during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, October 27th and 28th. Its security tools and monitoring systems flagged the activity, allowing its technical teams to isolate potentially infected components before the attackers could gain control of the agency's applications.
MyMinfin is Belgium's main online platform for managing tax returns and financial documents. The agency has not given a date for restoring the affected services, saying it needs to do so in a controlled environment to avoid introducing further security risks.
"This measure helps limit the risks and makes it possible to carry out the necessary technical interventions to ensure the security of our systems," the agency said in its initial announcement.
Speaking to local media, the agency’s spokesperson Francis Adyns said the attackers failed to gain control of applications or access data.
"The attack could not be sufficiently expanded within our environment to take over applications or gain access to data," Adyns told Nieuwsblad, according to The Register. "Elements that were potentially infected were isolated. As a result, MyMinfin, Tax-on-web, and Biztax went offline, but the hacking was successfully stopped."
In view of the disruption, the agency has extended the tax filing deadline to November 16th.
Cyberattacks disrupt public services
Belgium's incident adds to a growing list of cyberattacks and security incidents that involve government agencies. These organizations hold sensitive personal, financial and business information, while their online services are the primary means of interactions between citizens and the state.
France experienced a significant breach of its tax systems earlier this year, when attackers accessed information belonging to over 650,000 taxpayers, making it a more serious attack than the Belgian intrusion.
Another French government agency, the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS), suffered a breach in April that exposed approximately 19 million identity records containing passport, national ID card and driver's license information.
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More recently, the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities prompted precautionary shutdowns of government websites and services across Europe, including in Finland and the Netherlands, as administrators moved to patch affected systems.
The threat has since moved beyond precautionary shutdowns with cybersecurity researchers suspecting China-linked hackers exploiting a Linux kernel vulnerability along with PHP2Shell to breach a US government-affiliated network.
These incidents differ in scale and impact, but they illustrate the risks government agencies face when attackers target the digital services citizens rely on. Belgium says it stopped its attackers before they could access data, but the shutdown shows how even a contained intrusion can disrupt essential public services.
