Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the number of disruptive digital attacks within the European Union has increased. These are predominantly targeting election-related services and European infrastructure, and many have been traced to Russia-backed hacktivist groups. That doesn’t mean that only public institutions can be affected, however. Private companies should also be taking steps to bolster their cybersecurity efforts. 

Attacks against Europe public infrastructure

According to Juhan Lepassaar, head of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), “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.” 

This is a significant increase and is worrying in a year when the European Parliament is holding elections. In addition to direct attacks, malicious actors are using AI to create and disseminate more realistic disinformation more quickly, in an attempt to influence voters. 

The private sector is still target

Whilst most of these attacks are targeting the public sector – according to ENISA’s 2023 annual report there was a surge in ransomware attacks and incidents targeting public institutions – the increased sophistication of these attacks should also be a concern for the public sector. For example, in February this year, British engineering company Arup was the victim of a deepfake scam in which an employee was duped into sending HKD 200m (USD 25.5m) to criminals by an artificial intelligence-generated video call.

How to protect against cyber attacks

Educating your employees to be aware of the methods cybercriminals use to extract confidential information is still very relevant, however with the use of AI, it’s becoming harder to spot deepfakes and other social engineering tactics. As a result, you can’t rely on this. Instead, you need to take more proactive measures, such as including endpoint protection platforms in your ransomware defence strategy; adopting a cyber kills chain model that can track the stages of a cyberattack; implementing a zero-trust approach to security; and, importantly, patch management to fix vulnerabilities in a timely manner.