He General blackout that left Spain, Portugal and part of southern France in the dark last Monday, April 28, has put on the table one of the most delicate hypotheses: the possibility that behind the electric collapse there is a cyber attackpossibly linked to Russia. Although Red Eléctrica has preliminary discarded this option, the government has not completely eliminated it from the lines of investigation. In addition, the direct contact of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenskiwith Pedro Sánchez, offering technical support in a situation that he links with similar experiences lived in Ukraine in the framework of the war with Russia, has re -activated the alerts. At the same time, institutions such as the National Cryptological Center (CCN) have opened research to rule out any computer intrusion that could have destabilized the critical infrastructure of the State. The executive himself admits that, at this point, all hypotheses remain open and that No scenario can be ruled out Until the technical analysis concluded.
The Government maintains several mechanisms to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a cyber attack. Sanchez stressed that, despite positively assessing the electricity analysis, Moncloa’s responsibility is “to use all the mechanisms to know what happened and Do not rule out any hypothesis“. In this line, the judge of Lto the National CourtJosé Luis Calama, has opened proceedings to investigate whether the blackout was an act of computer sabotage to Spanish critical infrastructures, which could constitute a crime of terrorism. The magistrate has requested reports from the National Cryptological Center, to Red Electrica and the National Police Information Police Station to determine the causes of the incident. This judicial investigation reflects the concern of the authorities for the essential infrastructure security and the need to maintain all open options until the facts clarify.
The precedents in Ukraine
Russian cyber attacks against Ukraine have been widely documented and have affected several critical infrastructures of the country. In fact, hours after Monday’s general blackout, Zelenski said that “throughout the years of war and Russian attacks on our energy system, Ukraine has acquired a significant experience in overcoming any energy challenge. “One of the most prominent incidents took place in December 2015, when a coordinated attack left more than more than 225.000 personas in the western regions of Ukraine. The attackers used malware – malicious software – Blackenergy to infiltrate the control systems of electrical companies, accessing by legitimate credentials and manually disconnecting supply switches. In addition, they displayed the KillDisk malware to delete data and They sabotaged the telephone lines Customer service to hinder the response to the incident.
Another significant example is the June 2017 attack known as NotPetya. This cyber attack, which began in Ukraine, used a variant of Petya malware to infect systems through a compromised update of the Medoc Fiscal Software. Although it was presented as a ransomware – computer sample – the main objective was destroy dataaffecting ministries, banks, airports and other critical infrastructure. The United States government attributed the attack on Russian military intelligence, considering it The most devastating cyber attack until now. These precedents demonstrate Russia’s ability to carry out sophisticated cyber attacks against essential infrastructure, using tactics such as systems infiltration through malware and the use of legitimate credentials to access control systems. All this has led the government to leave the door open to the possibility of a cyber attack.
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