The Cybersecurity Operations Centre (SOC) of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council detected a total of 2,526 alerts concerning cyberattacks or cybersecurity incidents of various kinds during 2024. These attempts at computer hacking represent a significant risk to the integrity of the municipal information and the personal details of the residents.
The Councillor for Human Resources and Technology, Dávila Purificación, clarified that among the various cyberattacks recorded last year, significant incidents included information breaches, intrusion attempts, vulnerabilities, and threats to system availability or those involving harmful content. “Only one incident had a brief impact and affected certain services,” he noted.
Furthermore, the Mayor disclosed that with respect to malicious emails, the City Council successfully blocked a total of 314,410 classified as harmful in the past year. Of these, 39,419 messages originating from specific IP addresses were intercepted, along with another 5,742 messages from email addresses. Additionally, computer viruses were detected in 1,035 messages.
Moreover, another 54 messages received in various municipal departments posed threats, while 92,250 emails contained links to malicious URLs. To this, 17 cases of identity impersonation were added, alongside 33,264 classified as spam and 120,266 deemed as mass messages. Furthermore, 17,656 messages failed authenticity checks, in addition to another 4,707 that breached data control policies.
The Councillor announced that “to enhance the security of the municipal management, the General Directorate of Technology will allocate 500,000 euros towards cybersecurity and protection systems within the municipal budget approved for this year.” This amount will be supplemented by an additional 1.3 million euros dedicated to upgrading the hardware and software infrastructure of the customer data platform (CDP), which encompasses storage, servers, and network electronics.
The Mayor also indicated that “firewall and antispyware systems will be reinforced, which will be complemented by specific training for all municipal employees. This aims to ensure they have access to up-to-date information on emerging cyber threats and the ability to identify fraudulent emails or scams that may endanger the City Council.”
