A computer virus known as a Trojan took down the Malta Financial Services Authority's IT systems for six hours last May, the Finance Minister revealed today. 

The security breach happened on the 18 May and was flagged at 10.07am, the minister said. The MFSA's IT Unit immediately identified the problem, isolated the infected files and instructed everyone to close any open documents on their systems.  

Systems were back up and running at 4.15pm that day, Prof. Scicluna said. He insisted that nothing on the MFSA's systems had been compromised by the security breach. 

The minister said that the authority was still consulting with its antivirus service providers to understand how the Trojan had infiltrated its IT systems. 

Prof. Scicluna admitted to the breach while replying to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Joe Farrugia this evening.  

He told Mr Farrugia that the MFSA had a disaster recovery plan in place, as well as a offsite data centre managed by its IT unit. 

A Trojan, or Trojan Horse, is a form of computer malware that takes its name from the famous story from Greek mythology. Trojans hide themselves within seemingly harmless programs or try to trick you into installing them. Rather than replicating by infecting other files or computers, Trojans survive by going unnoticed. 

Governments have struggled to contain increasingly sophisticated IT attacks in recent years. In 2015, the German parliament's IT systems were found to be infected with Trojans, with hackers making away with unknown amounts of data.

Earlier this year, the US government was forced to admit that hackers had published information on 20,000 FBI agents they had obtained by hacking into a Department of Justice computer.