The Central Government has activated all its available cells to fight against the “wave” of disinformation and cyberattacks of Russian origin that is expected in view of the European election campaign. In the intelligence services of the forces and security bodies of the State, they have “no doubt” that the occasion will be taken advantage of – from Russian servers – to manipulate the voter and weaken public trust by through subtle campaigns that undermine citizens’ confidence in democratic institutions and processes.
It was the Ministry of the Interior that activated the coordination network for security in electoral processes, which will enter the alert phase on Friday, with the start of the European election campaign. And despite the fact that the protocol is still in the preliminary phase, police sources assure La Vanguardia that a possible incident of exfiltration of information – by means of a spy program – from the mobile phone of a candidate who is running is already being investigated in the socialist list.
The field of action in which there will be involved ministries such as those of the Interior, Defense or Digital Transformation and organizations such as the Department of National Security, the Cybersecurity Institute and the Cryptology Center will be divided into two: on the one hand, the fight against cyber threats, and on the other, the battle against disinformation campaigns. There is, according to all the sources consulted, a more important concern for the second area.
The cyber security teams of the departments are trying to shield their portals to avoid attacks like the one that brought down the website of the Ministry of the Interior in the 2023 general elections. Sources in the case of the incident explain that operators of Russian origin collapsed the portal by sending 600,000 requests for information – made on the ministry’s website through citizen service forms – in two minutes. An attack that was launched after the closure of the schools, in a context in which the theories of manipulation in the counting of votes had been encouraged.
The National Cyber ??Security Institute (Incibe) will be key in cyber defense during the elections, since it will look after the digital security of the main entities and companies with active roles in these elections 24 hours a day: political parties, support for electoral processes and operators of critical services, as explained in a telephone conversation by its manager of cyber crises. In the focus are entities with their own names such as Correos, Indra or Ifema. During this period, the 017 telephone, which centralizes all inquiries about cyber security, will be operational 24 hours a day.
Llamas predicts that the highest probability of cyberattacks or exfiltration of data – which causes serious reputational damage – could be concentrated during the 72 hours before the opening of the electoral ballot boxes, but the monitoring of data in open sources such as the dark is now fully operational, and a possible incident has already been reported in the context of the campaign. A possible “disinformation event” is also expected between the closing of the schools and 11 p.m. on election day, until which time the results will not begin to be made public – which is different from the rest of the elections, in which the scrutiny is known before. This period of time, as Llamas explains, can be used to launch a campaign that aims to cast doubt on the counting and electoral fraud.
But the real battle will take place in the field of disinformation, a task that will be coordinated by the Department of National Security. Juan Miguel Velasco, director of Aiuken Cybersecurity, expects an avalanche of orchestrated campaigns on social networks with videos that will exacerbate anti-European messages with classic topics such as immigration or aid to farmers. Velasco believes that, unlike the last elections in Catalonia, in which almost no toxic information campaigns were detected, the European campaign will indeed be full of them. And while any social network, messaging app or even video games can be the perfect breeding ground for misinformation, TikTok stands out above the rest, according to the cybersecurity expert.
