Europe's cybersecurity chief says disruptive attacks have doubled in 2024, sees Russia behind many
The top European Union cybersecurity official says that disruptive digital attacks have doubled in the 27-member bloc in recent months and election-related services are also being targeted
ATHENS, Greece — Disruptive digital attacks, many linked to Russian-backed groups, have doubled in the European Union in recent months and are also targeting election-related services, according to the EU’s top cybersecurity official.
Juhan Lepassaar, head of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, or ENISA, told The Associated Press in an interview that attacks with geopolitical motives have steadily risen since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
“The number of hacktivist attacks (against) European infrastructure — threat actors whose main aim is to cause disruption — has doubled from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024,” Lepassaar said late Tuesday at the agency's headquarters in Athens.
“It’s quite a significant increase," he said.
Citizens from the EU's 27 member states will vote June 6-9 for lawmakers in the European Parliament in an election that will also shape the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission. On Wednesday, Belgian officials said police carried out searches at the residence of an employee of the European Parliament and at his office in the Parliament’s building in Brussels over suspected Russian interference. Elections, also due in the United States, Britain and multiple other countries, have alerted security agencies to the threat of disruption campaigns funded by adversaries.
ENISA has led exercises and intense consultations to harden the resilience of election-related agencies in the EU for the past seven months. In an annual report for 2023, the agency
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