Europe’s cybersecurity chief says the number of disruptive attacks has doubled in 2024 and sees Russia behind many

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Disruptive digital attacksmany of which are linked to Russia-backed groups, has doubled in the European Union in recent months and is also targeting election-related services, according to the EU’s top cybersecurity official.

Juhan Lepassaar, head of the European Union Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA), told the Associated Press in an interview that attacks with geopolitical motives have been increasing since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“The number of hacktivist attacks (on) European infrastructure – threat actors whose main goal is to cause disruption – doubled from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024,” Lepassaar said late Tuesday at the agency’s headquarters in Athens.

“That’s a pretty significant increase,” he said.

From 6 to 9 June, citizens of the 27 EU member states will elect their representatives for the European Parliament in an election that will also shape the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission. On Wednesday, Belgian officials said police research carried out in the home of a European Parliament employee and in his office in the Parliament building in Brussels on suspicion of Russian interference. Elections that were also held in the United States, Great Britain and several other countrieshave alerted security authorities to the threat posed by adversary-funded disruption campaigns.

ENISA has conducted exercises and intensive consultations over the past seven months to strengthen the resilience of election-related authorities in the EU. In an annual report for 2023, the agency noted an increase in ransomware attacks and incidents targeting public institutions.

Lepassaar said the attack methods – although not always successful – were often tried in Ukraine before being expanded to EU countries.

“This is part of the Russian war of aggression that they are waging physically in Ukraine but also digitally throughout Europe,” he said.

Experts warn that artificial intelligence is also being used to target Western voters with misleading or false information at an increasing pace and scale, including hyper-realistic video and audio clips – so-called deepfakes.

“Member states’ cybersecurity authorities have also stressed that AI-enabled disinformation and information manipulation pose a major threat,” Lepassaar said.

His comments echo a warning issued by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence this month. Avril Haines that technological advances will enable more nations and groups to launch effective disinformation campaigns.

Experts from the US and Europe are helping security agencies to anticipate new digital threats and vulnerabilities that will emerge over the course of this decade. ENISA has identified food production, satellite control and self-driving vehicles as areas that require attention.

Cybersecurity, Lepassaar argues, must inevitably become second nature to designers and consumers.

“I believe that we face the societal challenge of understanding digital security in the same way that we understand security in the everyday traffic environment,” he said.

“When we drive a car, we are aware of what is happening around us. We are alert,” he said. “We need to adopt the same behaviors and habits when we operate in any kind of digital environment.”

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