EUROPE'S CYBERSECURITY CHIEF SAYS DISRUPTIVE ATTACKS HAVE DOUBLED IN 2024, SEES RUSSIA BEHIND MANY

Disruptive digital attacks, many linked 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.

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Juhan Lepassaar, head of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, or ENISA, told 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 at the agency's headquarters in Athens.

"It's quite a significant increase," he said.