SOVA traces its origins to the
State Security Service (;
SDV), which was formed in 1966 when Slovenia was still within Yugoslavia, by renaming as the
State Security Administration. On 9 May 1991 the service was renamed as the
Security and Information Service (;
VIS). Renaming to the current name was performed on 17 June 1993, at which time the agency was transferred from the
Ministry of Internal Affairs to the
Government of Slovenia. In December 2022, following a tip from foreign intelligence services, SOVA discovered two Russian spies posing as Argentine citizens Maria Rosa Mayer Muños and Ludwik Gisch, whose personas they had been building for over 10 years and who had been using Slovenia as a base for operations in and around the country. After wiretapping and tracking, they discovered that the suspects family and companies were just a front, their real names being Ana Dulceva and Artem Dulcev. In Slovenia, their main target was the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, while abroad they led other agents. An important part of their mission was to reduce public support for NATO and spread Russian narratives and disinformation. The spies were sentenced to prison, after which they were deported and included in an exchange for various individuals imprisoned in Russia. The Dultsevs and their children were flown to Moscow as part of the biggest swap of Western and Russian prisoners since the Cold War. U.S President
Joe Biden has publicly commended Slovenia. At the same time, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, SOVA monitored an increase in the number of unusually old Russian "students", eight of whom were later expelled for spreading Russian propaganda and impersonating Slovenian officials. ==Directors==