Turkey's cyber security: A long way to go

The awareness was there. So was the ambition to make cyber security the country?s ?fifth force.? Events in a span of less than two years have shown that Turkey is still too far away from building reliable defenses against cyber threats.

Only a couple of months after a Turkish colonel publicly pledged to build the country?s ?fifth [military] force,? Turkey proved to be too vulnerable to security threats from an unknown enemy.

In January 2014, the embarrassing news over the Turkish gendarmerie?s search of trucks carrying a generous cargo of weapons and ammunition bound for Syria, and accompanied by intelligence officers, fell into the public domain. After much wrangling between different state agencies, a court ruled for a complete media blackout on the incident. The gendarmerie officers who searched the trucks now stand in court for espionage.

In March 2014, unknown sources leaked the full minutes of a meeting that had gathered (then) Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlio?lu, M?T head Hakan Fidan and a top-ranking general from military HQ, Ya?ar Güler. The recording undoubtedly detailed then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an?s Syria policy that ?an attack on Syria ?must be seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey].?? Davuto?lu?s office admitted the authenticity of the recording but claimed it was ?partially manipulated? and was a ?wretched attack on Turkey?s national security.? The perpetrators remain unidentified.

More recently, there were media reports of another cyber attack on Turkey. A group flagging itself as the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) had leaked secret material that it said it had obtained by hacking the email communications of top strategic Turkish government agencies,...