What the hell happened to the Revenue Agency?

To deny. Denying even the obvious. It is a classic of cheating husbands, but not only. Companies and Public Administrations – far from having to hide escapades of any kind – use this technique with great ease. And it happened again this time.

A group of cybercriminals – known for being dramatically "trustworthy" – claims to have stolen a certain amount of potentially critical information from the Revenue Agency's computers. They have already made many armored businesses and institutions cry and – if ever there was a "TripAdvisor" of those who cook the most important information systems – the "gentlemen" of Lockbit 3.0 could boast memorable reviews. The Michelin Guide of the past would even have written “it deserves a detour”….

The news quickly bounced and the joy spreads among the hardened tax evaders and among the many poor recipients of not always surgical tests and often – like the dust under the carpet – destined to disappear with the providential "self-protection".

The tricolor taxman finds himself at the center of attention and awakens the dormant memory of the mythological "crazy files" that the whole world has always envied us as an example of unsurpassed creativity …

Since the watchword is “all is well”, officially nothing happened again this time.

In the collective astonishment, the Agency shows up with a Roman-style statement "but really?!?", Duly with a "v" only as is used in the capital, and ensures to ask SOGEI, which historically manages the systems.

The stainless "General Information Society", owned by the Department of Economy and Finance and recently to the headlines for a memorable blackout, immediately took care to deny the existence of any attack "on the site of the Revenue Agency ".

A moment. "To the site"?

SOGEI literally says " From the technical investigations carried out Sogei therefore excludes that a computer attack on the site of the Revenue Agency may have occurred ".

The Russian brigands announcing the exhibition of the scalp do not mention any website, but only that they have come into possession of information from the Inland Revenue. They probably got into the computer of some internal employee or an employee of any vendor. There is never a shortage of those who have made a few "clicks" too many after being deluded by some millionaire winnings in lotteries in which they have never participated, the advances of some inflatable statuesque matron found around social networks, the earning possibilities that only a scammer matriculated is able to fresco in the imagination of the idiot on duty.

The anthropomorphic vision of the most powerful computer systems reveals the traditional heel in the role of weak point. We have learned this (or, rather, we should have learned it) with the fatal experience of the Lazio Region that characterized last summer, revealing a level of vulnerability that is nothing short of disheartening.

A work station is enough to open the way to the bad guys. That computer can be enabled to access other people's archives and applications, embodying Charon ready to ferry the bandits to the other shore. That same "machine" is capable of storing delicious information for those who want to harm an organization. They can be documents and files exchanged for business reasons, as normally happens between the client and the service provider. Stuff that obviously is not destined to go public for natural reasons of confidentiality.

The swag is quantitatively insignificant. But even a small diamond is worth much more than a truckload of manure. The 78 gigabytes that Lockbit 3.0 boasted may simply be a slice of the victim's drive. Perhaps we will know who the victim is only after the stolen goods have been exposed, as long as someone does not give in to blackmail and pay the sum to ensure a beneficial silence.

In the latter case, the aura of mystery does not necessarily turn into favorable oblivion. Undue accesses are like peppers eaten in the evening: sooner or later they "come back up" even if the world of information forgets very easily.

If nothing really happened, let's sit and wait for the countdown to finish, eager to read the contents of the loot.

In recent times, data and projects from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati were on sale. None of the three automakers had been targeted by hackers, yet confidential technical material concerning them was circulating. The ruthless band Everest had hit Speroni SpA which supplied important components for the most beautiful sports cars …

It will be the Privacy Guarantor to evaluate the content of what this time the gangsters will spit on the surface Internet, on the deep web or in the ravines of the darknets.