Finnish intelligence agency reorganizes to strengthen intelligence gathering

The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Suojelupoliisi, or Supo) has been reorganized to “strengthen intelligence gathering”, the agency announced on Tuesday.

This follows authorities warning that the Kremlin has treated Finland as a “hostile state” and is suspected of maritime sabotage after Finland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

An investigation is underway into the incident, in which a Chinese-flagged ship en route to Russia damaged an undersea gas pipeline and communications cable between Finland and Estonia. In November, the Chinese government pledged to fully cooperate with the investigation. Moscow said one of its cables was also damaged.

SPO’s reorganization will reduce the agency’s previous nine departments to eight, and the heads of each department will be made public and published on its website, it said, adding that no further changes will be made public.

The reorganization follows the departure of the agency’s former head, Antti Pertari, early this year to take up the role of parliamentary secretary, effectively the head of the parliamentary civil service.

Teemu Turunen, Supo’s deputy director, has been appointed acting director of the agency until a permanent successor can be found. Jona Turunen, also a deputy director, will continue in his role, Supo announced.

The agency is responsible for not only domestic counterintelligence operations, but also foreign intelligence operations. Last year, it was involved in the expulsion of nine diplomats from the Russian embassy in Helsinki after the Finnish government accused them of conducting intelligence activities in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Supo warns Russia will ‘look to the cyber environment’ for espionage due to challenges affecting human intelligence operations, following the expulsion of alleged Russian agents across Europe did.

Sauli Perlman, deputy director of Finland’s National Cyber ​​Security Center, told Record Future News: “We do not think it is very unlikely that we will be able to break into a cyber security center.” [will] We saw the cyber incident that occurred in Finland, which resulted in a large-scale shutdown of critical supplies for society, such as food, electricity, and water. ”

Alexander Martin is the editor of Recorded Future News in the UK. He was previously a technology correspondent at Sky News and a fellow at the European Cyber ​​Conflict Research Initiative.