Foreign Minister and NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger announced the launch of a new Competence Center against Foreign Information Manipulation. Modeled after a Finnish institution, the center will officially debut during an international conference in Vienna.
The initiative follows Meinl-Reisinger's August visit to the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. That facility analyzes hybrid threats 24 hours a day, providing a blueprint for Austria's new strategic defense framework.
This development comes after Russian hacker groups targeted the Austrian Foreign Ministry and Carinthian provincial administration. The center aims to bolster national security against such cyberattacks and ongoing foreign efforts to manipulate information.