Banning Dropbox 'out of the question,' Turkish deputy FM says

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Naci Koru. AA photo

A move to ban access to the file-sharing system Dropbox in the wake of a recent attack by hackers on the ministry website yesterday was "out of the question," Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru said in a tweet on his Twitter account.

RedHack group gained access to a part of the Turkish Foreign Ministry database through a public domain and revealed hundreds of image files showing the identity cards issued to foreign diplomatic personnel in Turkey yesterday. The group had shared the images through a link within the file sharing system Dropbox.

Reports began circulating after the incident claiming the Foreign Ministry was moving to apply for an all access ban against Dropbox, which is widely used for both professional and personal reasons in Turkey. 
Koru clarified the situation in tweets he posted to his Twitter account, saying the ministry had applied to block access to the particular file dump that included the images of the diplomatic IDs, not the entire Dropbox system.

"It has not even crossed my mind to [demand a ban on Dropbox entirely] as a person who actively uses it," Koru tweeted on the microblogging site. 

Koru also tweeted that the ministry updated its security features after yesterday's attacks and has new security measures put in place.