Minister: Turkey blocked 108 million attempts to access 'harmful' websites in a decade
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Turkey blocked some 108 million attempts to access 252,883 "harmful" web addresses in a decade, the minister of transport and infrastructure has announced.
These statistics cover the period from 2014 when the National Cyber Incident Response Center (USOM) was established until now. "Risks related to vulnerabilities can be proactively detected" with regular scans conducted for some 16.7 million IP addresses, said Abdulkadir Uraloğlu.
However, the actual number of web addresses blocked in that period of time may be much higher, according to a group monitoring online censorship in Turkey. In the last year alone, courts blocked access to a record 137,000 web addresses, shows a report published last month by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD). This is about 30% more than the previous year's number. Among the blocked web addresses last year, there were a total of 6,528 news URLs.
According to the association, the total number of websites blocked from access in Turkey since 2006 is 712,558.
In line with the "Principles and Procedures for Secure Internet Usage," approved by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) in February 2011, "harmful" sites are blocked through the filtration of various keywords. While this method aims to block sites with adult content, it can also lead to the blocking of LGBTI+ sites.
Cyber fraud
Minister Uraloğlu also provided information that 44,835 domain names were blocked through the use of artificial intelligence to prevent attempts to defraud citizens.
Uraloğlu stated that USOM, operating under the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), continues its efforts to prevent cyber threats, including activities such as issuing alarms, warnings, and alerts, as well as intervening on-site in critical situations to manage incidents and ensuring national coordination for cyber incident response. (HA/RT/VK)