{"id":5921,"date":"2025-05-18T04:50:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/spain-reconsiders-possibility-of-hackers-causing-blackouts\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T04:50:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:50:26","slug":"spain-reconsiders-possibility-of-hackers-causing-blackouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/spain-reconsiders-possibility-of-hackers-causing-blackouts\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain reconsiders possibility of hackers causing blackouts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/nwskKjNT5LH2747DWDQoMF.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Spain is demanding answers from power suppliers about their cyber security in the wake of a day-long power outage, despite previous assessments suggesting hacking wasn&#8217;t to blame.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of April, the Iberian peninsula was hit by <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/cyber-attacks\/blackouts-in-spain-and-portugal-could-be-a-cyber-attack\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/cyber-attacks\/blackouts-in-spain-and-portugal-could-be-a-cyber-attack\">widespread power outages<\/a>. Most of the areas hit in Spain and Portugal returned to normal after ten hours, though it took a full 23 hours for Spain&#8217;s electricity grid to be fully online.<\/p>\n<aside data-block-type=\"embed\" data-render-type=\"fte\" data-skip=\"dealsy\" data-widget-type=\"seasonal\" class=\"hawk-base\"\/>\n<p>The possibility of the blackouts being caused by a cyberattack was immediately considered, though the grid operators in Spain and Portugal both said at the time there was no evidence of hacking, a point that was <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2025\/apr\/28\/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2025\/apr\/28\/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\">echoed<\/a> by authorities and politicians.<\/p>\n<p>Now, reports suggest Spanish authorities are investigating whether smaller power generators were a weak link that was exploited by cyber criminals to target the electricity grid, according to the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a24e6e3c-cf9f-4093-833b-6e7492e7e7f0\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a24e6e3c-cf9f-4093-833b-6e7492e7e7f0\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"><em>Financial Times<\/em>. <\/a><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"hacking-investigation-3\">Hacking investigation <\/h2>\n<p>The incident sparked debate around Spain&#8217;s use of renewable energy, which includes a series of smaller providers. The investigation suggests a possibility where the fault lies with a wider multitude of smaller partners weakening the security of the network, rather than the issue being the reliability of renewable sources themselves.<\/p>\n<p>According to the newspaper <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a24e6e3c-cf9f-4093-833b-6e7492e7e7f0\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a24e6e3c-cf9f-4093-833b-6e7492e7e7f0\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\">report<\/a>, smaller renewable power plants have received questions from Spain&#8217;s National Cybersecurity Institute about whether any &#8220;anomalies&#8221; were spotted before 28 April, if they had installed security patches or updates recently, and whether it was possible to remotely control plants.<\/p>\n<p>The new investigation follows an <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/spains-high-court-investigate-whether-power-outage-was-cyberattack-2025-04-29\/\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/spains-high-court-investigate-whether-power-outage-was-cyberattack-2025-04-29\/\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\">inquiry ordered by a high court judge<\/a> into whether the outage was caused by a cyberattack.<\/p>\n<div id=\"slice-container-newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-ThYYu9kuurZJveG3xwyZc4\" class=\"slice-container newsletter-inbodyContent-slice newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-ThYYu9kuurZJveG3xwyZc4 slice-container-newsletterForm\">\n<div data-hydrate=\"true\" class=\"newsletter-form__wrapper newsletter-form__wrapper--inbodyContent\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-form__container\">\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__top-bar\"\/>\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__main-section\">\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report &#8211; the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2 id=\"what-happened-3\">What happened? <\/h2>\n<p>Security company Specops Software <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/specopssoft.com\/blog\/spain-portugal-blackout-cyber-attack\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" data-url=\"https:\/\/specopssoft.com\/blog\/spain-portugal-blackout-cyber-attack\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\">said<\/a> in a blog post analyzing the outage that the sudden shutdowns mirrored previous hack-caused grid events, including the attacks in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016, but acknowledged that the grid operators ruled out a malicious intrusion after looking at their own telemetry, logs, and firewall records.<\/p>\n<p>However, the new investigation appears to be centered on external power providers, rather than those centralized grids.<\/p>\n<p>Barracuda regional sales director Miguel L\u00f3pez told the <em>FT<\/em> that &#8220;a cyber attack doesn&#8217;t seem to be the most plausible hypothesis&#8221; because if hackers had managed to break systems, it would have taken longer to restore the grid.<\/p>\n<p>The grid outage comes amid wider threats to critical national infrastructure (CNI) from hackers, including politically motivated attackers, with American and British authorities warning that pro-Russian hacktivists have been targeting industrial control systems across the US and Europe. Previous attacks include a ransomware incident targeting on Colonial Pipeline and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/data-breaches\/358455\/10-ways-to-protect-your-company-from-the-next-big-data-breach\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.itpro.com\/security\/data-breaches\/358455\/10-ways-to-protect-your-company-from-the-next-big-data-breach\">data breach<\/a> at a water treatment plant in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Recent research suggests almost all \u2013 a whopping 95% \u2013 of CNI organizations have suffered a data breach in the last year, highlighting the need for increased security vigilance.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spain is demanding answers from power suppliers about their cyber security in the wake of a day-long power outage, despite previous assessments suggesting hacking wasn&#8217;t to blame. At the end of April, the Iberian peninsula was hit by widespread power outages. Most of the areas hit in Spain and Portugal returned to normal after ten [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cicserver.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}