Athens, Greece — Disruptive digital attacks, many of which have been attributed 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, director of the European Union Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA), told The Associated Press in an interview that geopolitically motivated attacks have steadily increased since the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
“The number of hacktivist attacks (against) European infrastructure – threat actors whose main objective is to cause disruption – has doubled from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024,” Lepassaar said Tuesday evening at the headquarters of the agency in Athens.
“It’s a pretty significant increase,” he said.
Citizens of the EU’s 27 member states will vote from June 6 to 9 to elect lawmakers to the European Parliament in an election that will also shape the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission. The elections, which will also be held in the United States, Britain and many other countries, have alerted security agencies to the threat of disruptive campaigns funded by adversaries.
ENISA has led exercises and intensive consultations to strengthen the resilience of EU election-related agencies over the past seven months. 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 mostly unsuccessful, were often tested in Ukraine before expanding to EU countries.
“This is part of the Russian war of aggression, which they wage physically in Ukraine, but also digitally throughout Europe,” he said.
Experts warn that AI tools are also being used to target Western voters at increasing speed and scale with misleading or false information, including hyper-realistic video and audio clips known as deepfakes.
“Cybersecurity agencies of member states have also emphasized that AI-driven disinformation and information manipulation are a major threat,” Lepassaar said.
His comments echo a warning made this month by US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines that technological progress will make it easier for more nations and groups to launch effective disinformation campaigns.
American and European experts are helping security agencies try to anticipate emerging digital threats and vulnerabilities during this decade, with ENISA identifying food production, satellite management and autonomous vehicles as areas requiring attention.
Cybersecurity, Lepassaar argues, will inevitably have to become second nature for designers and consumers.
“I think we have a societal challenge ahead of us to understand digital safety in the same way we understand safety in the everyday traffic environment,” he said.
“When we drive, we are aware of what is happening around us. “We are alert,” she stated. “The same type of behaviors and habits are what we need to instill as well when operating in any type of digital environment.”
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