Europe keeps a wary eye on Russian cyber warfare

Russia’s suspected hacking of Democratic National Committee emails to aid Donald Trump was a step too far for European governments, says one analyst

British MP and former secretary of state for culture Ben Bradshaw said last week he thought it 'highly probable' that Russia meddled in the Brexit referendum process in June. Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

DUBLIN // European governments are increasingly apprehensive of Russian state-sponsored propaganda and hacking in their political and economic affairs, as US security agencies confirm Moscow’s interference in the recent presidential election.

British prime minister Theresa May will chair a session of the national security council early next year to deal with suspicions of Russian cyber warfare, media reports said on Saturday. It came after the British government announced on November 1 a plan to spend £1.9 billion (Dh8.6bn) on cybersecurity.

Warning of hostile “foreign actors”, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that if the UK failed to act, “we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek, ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response”.

Although Mr Hammond did not name any country, other officials have singled Russia out.

Labour MP and former secretary of state for culture Ben Bradshaw said last week he thought it “highly probable” that Russia meddled in the Brexit referendum process in June.

Air Chief Marshall Sir Stuart Peach, the most senior officer in the UK’s armed forces, said on Thursday last week: “Many people have alleged political subversion, propaganda rather than information. And there’s no doubt – it’s not a secret – that Russia is using cyber as a part of this power.”

In response, the Russian embassy in London tweeted: “We will be happy to finally see some proof.”

“I think what you are seeing is the new manifestation of the old Cold War,” said Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey. “It may have stopped for a while, but it is still going – only this time in cyberspace.”

The UK has not yet made public any hacking activity that can be attributed to Russia, Mr Woodward said. But given how vocal governments have been about Russian cyber warfare, intelligence agencies may well hold details of such attacks

Britain’s concerns have been echoed in continental Europe as well, particularly as France, the Netherlands and Germany head into an election year.

On December 8, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, warned of cyber operations that could “weaken or destabilise” the country. Russia is conducting “aggressive and increased cyberspying and cyber operations”, Mr Maassen said.

A hack of the emails of German parliamentarians last year – the contents of which were subsequently published by WikiLeaks – was the work of the same Russian outfit that pilfered the emails of the Democratic National Committee in the US, Mr Maassen alleged.

As with Donald Trump in America, two of France’s most conservative presidential candidates, Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon, are also seen to share a warm relationship with Russia.

By its own admission, Ms Le Pen’s Front National party has periodically requested and received loans from Russian banks.

After the party received an €11 million (Dh42m) loan from the Moscow-based First Czech Russian Bank in 2014, Ms Le Pen’s critics charged that she was being rewarded for backing Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Mr Fillon has often defended Russia, arguing that sanctions on Moscow have been unfair and that the West goaded Russia into its belligerence in Ukraine. During the run-up to the US election, when asked about the potential effects of an alliance between Mr Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin, Mr Fillon said: “I do not fear it. I wish for it.”

Last week, the Russian government gave US$19 million (Dh70m) in funds to RT, a state-backed television company, to start a French-language channel.

Meanwhile in Bulgaria, president Rosen Plevneliev said in early November that Russia had already initiated a cyberattack in his country, “the heaviest and most intense ... that has been conducted in south-east Europe”.

Europe’s worries coincide with a wider rise in information warfare, according to an annual threat assessment from Kaspersky Lab, a global cybersecurity company.

In its predictions for 2017, published in a report last month, Kaspersky Lab noted that the kind of attacks conducted in 2016 – “the dumping of hacked information for aggressive purposes” – will rise. It said “attackers will ... exploit people’s willingness to accept such data as fact”.

“As critical infrastructure and manufacturing systems remain connected to the internet, often with little or no protection, the temptation to damage or disrupt them could prove overwhelming for cyberattackers, particularly ... during times of rising geopolitical tension,” the report said.

Russia’s suspected intervention in favour of Mr Trump marked the culmination of a growing impatience with cyber warfare, Mr Woodward said, referring to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s emails.

“The reason we’ve seen the rhetoric of late [from] western governments is that elections could have been affected,” he said. “That’s obviously over the line.”

“Stealing information is something that intelligence agencies have done for centuries, but to try to influence elections in a way that is so public is something that western governments clearly believe they cannot stand by and let happen unchallenged.”