Cyprus-sourced road cameras for Slovakia were manufactured in Russia and may be used for espionage

Slovakia's Interior Ministry aimed to modernize its road traffic monitoring system by purchasing 279 speed cameras from a Cyprus-based company. However, Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung revealed that the cameras were actually manufactured in Russia. The devices' branding was reportedly altered before being delivered to Slovakia.

In August, opposition party Progressive Slovakia first raised concerns about the cameras' Russian origin. Initially dismissed, these claims were later confirmed by Slovakia's National Security Bureau, which identified the manufacturers as St. Petersburg-based LLC Simicon. An analysis by the Bureau exposed security vulnerabilities, including a hidden slot for a second SIM card and the ability to receive SMS commands from 12 registered phone numbers in Russia.

Consequently, the Interior Ministry halted the testing of the new cameras. The Cypriot supplier, Sodasus Ltd, initially presented itself as the manufacturer, but was later found to be a shell company with no evidence of commercial activity. The National Security Bureau noted that similar Russian-made cameras are being used in several EU countries, including Slovakia, through a Croatian company named Neroline.

In May 2025, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre and its intelligence counterparts in the U.S. and European nations disclosed that Russian military hackers had compromised over 10,000 cameras near military facilities, railway hubs, and border crossings, primarily in Ukraine but also in Eastern European countries like Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.

These cameras were reportedly used to monitor the movement of equipment and weapons to Ukraine. The National Cyber Security Centre emphasized that Russia was employing this method to disrupt military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv. The compromised cameras were reportedly managed by the hacker group APT28 (Fancy Bear), a unit of Russia's GRU, suspected of cyberattacks against Western institutions such as the U.S. Democratic National Committee, the German Bundestag, and the OPCW. In 2020, the EU sanctioned GRU chief Igor Kostyukov and his subordinates.