[walrus01]

I am really skeptical that considering the ongoing total operational budget on a yearly basis for all of the facilities and support structure in Strasbourg there are no infosec/netsec professionals. If that's really true, then to put it crudely, you're utterly fucked. Because Russia certainly does have money for blackhat infosec/netsec types.

[objclxt]

> considering the ongoing total operational budget on a yearly basis for all of the facilities and support structure in Strasbourg

You're conflating parliamentary budget and staff with a campaign budget and staff. These documents came from his campaign, not a parliamentary office (be it EU or French). For obvious reasons the two don't mix. Campaigns generally operate on extremely restricted budgets, and are naturally transient in nature.

[walrus01]

okay, true, even so. In a nation the size of France I find it really doubtful that major political parties would go begging for the budget to hire infosec/netsec professionals, considering the amount of money spent on all the other expenses of a major campaign.

[ajdlinux]

Note that En Marche is a party that was specifically set up for Macron's presidential campaign in April last year - it's not one of France's established parties.

[literallycancer]

FN is financed by Russia, since other banks wouldn't give them a loan. And Le Pen is a contender in the second round so presumably it is exactly the case that major parties can have budget issues.

[dragonwriter]

> I am really skeptical that considering the ongoing total operational budget on a yearly basis for all of the facilities and support structure in Strasbourg there are no infosec/netsec professionals.

I think you just confused "a European Parliament" (that is, a national parliament in Europe) with "the European Parliament", which is a different thing altogether.

And then also confused an MP (or, in your interpretation, MEP) not having any infosec staff with the whole government (or EU) not having infosec staff.

But then, even with all that, your conclusion isn't all that wrong for the topic at hand; if a major power like Russia targets a particular politician in the West (perhaps aside from the official, rather than campaign, personality of the sitting head of state), there is likely to be a substantial resource asymmetry that favors the attacker.

[matt4077]

I think OP works for a member of parliament, if I understand them correctly. Their offices are actually not that sensitive. All the secrets are held by the executive, and the EU doesn't even have the sort of military and intelligence institutions that are usually most secretive.

[throwaway847345]

> I think OP works for a member of parliament, if I understand them correctly.

No, he is saying that he is a member of a parliament. The lower house of the Irish parliament to be exact [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Rock

[literallycancer]

>EU doesn't even have the sort of military and intelligence institutions that are usually most secretive.

Might just be because the EU is a trade block, it doesn't have secretive military and intelligence institutions because it doesn't have any military and intelligence institutions at all.

[alva]

> it doesn't have any military and intelligence institutions at all.

Better let INTCEN, SIAC, SitCen, EUFOR and EUNAVFOR know that.

The EU is absolutely far, far more than a trade block.

[walrus01]

and ISAF (now RS/Resolute Support)

[remarkEon]

ISAF and RS are functions of NATO, not the EU.

[walrus01]

Well shit, I better let the people in the DGSE and BND know that they shouldn't have access to their data sharing partnership with the NSA. Some guy on the Internet says that the EU doesn't have any IMINT, HUMINT or SIGINT, it must be true.

[literallycancer]

France or Germany having their own intelligence services is entirely compatible with what I said though. Their allegiance is to their own country first, and data sharing partnerships change little.