The City Hall of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in recent weeks, and “importantly aggravated after the events that are taking place in Ukraine” has “accelerated different works already underway and has started other actions to secure the municipal system, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that services are not be affected.” This was announced this morning by the mayor of the city, José Manuel Bermúdez, given the increase in cyberattacks on municipal computer services, allegedly carried out by Russian hacker attack.
Accompanied by the Councilor for Technology, Alfonso Cabello, and assisted by the General Director of Innovation, Manuel Pérez Coca, the mayor pointed out that “only yesterday, March 21, 891 potential threats were detected in the municipal system and during the last month, this figure has been 21,774”.
Said plan materializes in three lines of work, in different periods, to tackle any eventuality in this matter and in the face of the possibility of attacks by Russian hackers: in a first block, during this month of March, an information plan has been promoted to City Hall staff as well as changes in password protocols, blocking times and exhaustive analysis of inactive user accounts.
In a second block, with effects in the next two months, changes in messaging systems and identities will be included.
In a third block, to be developed before the end of the year, we are going to improve the auditing systems, as well as make different investments, charged to the European Next Generation funds, for a total amount of 360,000 euros in projects related to the data processing center (incorporation of devices specifically designed for data backup and deduplication); the incorporation of tools to detect harmful programs (malware); and the implementation of a tool that coordinates all computer security systems.
Russian hacker attacks
Ciudadanos considers that Spain, given the situation unleashed by the war in Ukraine, should consider the opportunity to create a digital embassy in a European country to guarantee the protection of citizens’ data and the continuity of the State in the event of a large-scale cyber attack , even more so with the prominence that Russian hacker attacks have taken in recent days.
This is how the orange formation proposes it in a non-law proposal that it has presented in Congress in which it calls for “learning from the experiences of those countries” that have previously suffered attacks by Russian hackers.
Specifically, he cites the case of Latvia which, after the cyberattack to which it was subjected in 2007 and which brought down 58 web pages, took the first steps for an initiative of this type that ended up crystallizing in 2017.
GUARANTEE THE CONTINUITY OF THE STATE
Then the aforementioned Baltic country signed an agreement with Luxembourg for the establishment of the first digital embassy in the world. This meant the establishment of data backup servers in the other country, with the maximum possible security and with the same rights as physical embassies, such as immunity.
“The existence of this digital embassy would allow the continuity of the state, even in the face of an invasion, and the protection of vital data and intelligence files from the possible takeover of the main data centers by the Kremlin through attacks by Russian hackers,” says Citizens.
In the text, to which Europa Press has had access, the orange formation adds that the development of technologies such as blockchain can be key to improving the security of these processes, and that the establishment of these digital embassies “means deepening Europeanism and agreements between different governments to guarantee the survival of European democratic and liberal values”.
For all these reasons, he wants Congress to urge the Government to initiate the procedures for the establishment of a Spanish digital embassy in one of our allied countries, “in such a way that the protection of our citizens’ data is guaranteed” and the continuity of the State ” in the event of a large-scale cyberattack.
