Walter Finch
A MASSIVE blackout has plunged much of Spain — and parts of Portugal — into darkness today, sparking speculation that the country may have suffered a major cyberattack.
While no official cause has yet been confirmed, Junta president Juan Manuel Moreno has been the first government official to suggest it is the work of a foreign power.
“Everything points to the fact that a blackout of this magnitude can only be due to a cyberattack,” he said.
He admitted, however, that his conclusion is only based on ‘our own data’ from the Andalucian Cybersecurity Centre (Centro de Ciberseguridad de Andalucía), and lacks official support from Madrid or the country’s national security agencies.
Cybersecurity authorities in both Spain and Portugal have urged caution.
Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre said there was ‘no evidence’ so far that a cyberattack was responsible.
Meanwhile, Spain’s National Cryptologic Centre (Centro Criptológico Nacional) would only confirm that an investigation is underway, without ruling anything in or out.
Spain is no stranger to cyber threats, suffering hundreds of critical-level attacks each year.
The Ministry of Defence’s Joint Cyber Command is also now probing whether the power cut could have had a digital origin.
Cybersecurity experts warned that while cyberattacks on energy networks are theoretically possible, successfully knocking out the grids of two countries simultaneously would require a highly sophisticated, coordinated operation.
Lukasz Olejnik, a cybersecurity expert at King’s College London, pointed out that although power network vulnerabilities exist, orchestrating an attack on this scale would be ‘extremely difficult’, El Pais report.
To date, there is no clear evidence pointing to a deliberate attack.
Past incidents — such as Russian-linked blackouts in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016 — show it can happen, but successful cyberattacks on electricity grids remain rare.
As of this evening, power was gradually being restored across affected areas.
