Europe’s cybersecurity chief says disruptive attacks have doubled

Disruptive digital attacks, many of which have been traced to Russia-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.