The next cyber attack that will hit Italy was just announced

(Paywall-free popularization like this is what I do for a living. To support me, see the end of this post)

Not explicitly, of course. But it WAS officially announced.

The next cyber attack that will hit Italy was just announced /img/verificac19.jpg

In a couple of weeks, almost all italian teachers will have to have a valid Green Pass (that is, a certificate that they either got vaccinated, or tested negative for COVID-19) to enter their schools.

Regardless of what one thinks of vaccines, or COVID-19 in general, this creates a serious logistic problem, since an italian Green Pass can last as long as six months (for vaccinated people) or as little as two days (if you got a negative tampon). This means that all the principals of every italian school should check if all their teachers have a valid Green Pass every morning of every school day, obviously before lessons start.

To make this possible, the Government has just announced the creation of a dedicated website, connected with all the necessary databases.

Once the website is up and running, that is in a couple of weeks maximum, every principal will be able to log in, every morning, to get a list of all her teachers, each colored accordingly to their Green Pass Status for that specific day. So, if anyone is red, the principal will know that that teacher cannot enter school, until he or she has received a new Green Pass in one way or another or, at least, results negative to a rapid tampon made on the spot (albeit, for the moment, this is just a guess of mine!).

Right now, it is not completely clear if and how this website (or smartphone app) will need specific authorizations or changes to comply with italian privacy regulations, or if will need an ad-hoc law passed in Parliament to be implemented. There is one thing, though, that everybody can be already sure about:

after the previous very embarrassing Green Pass cyber attacks, this service is the next one that will be targeted by cybercriminals. Remember I (and countless others, surely) said this on August 27th, 2021.

Image source: (changed on Sept 7th, 2021): from this article, that explains how the website should work, in practice.

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I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
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