The political tension after the Catalonia referendum on October 1, 2017, has influenced the virtual arena as well, resulting in cyber-attacks against Spanish websites carried out by hacktivists leaking information about high profile targets and claiming responsibility for shutting down websites. These threat actors use various anti-Spain hashtags that indicate the different cyber campaigns: #OpEspana, #OpCatalonia, #OpCatalonya and #OpSaveCatalonia.
Data Leakages Published on Social Media
Since the beginning of October 2017, hacktivists have published various links to download databases belonged to several Spanish websites:
- The Spanish Police (policia.es)
- The political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya
- The Municipality of Madrid (madrid.org)
- The Department of Finance of Galicia (conselleriadefacenda.es)
- ESIC – Marketing and Business School (esic.edu)
- The water agency of Castilla-La Mancha (pagina.jccm.es/agenciadelagua/)
- The University of the Basque Country (ehu.es)
- City Hall of San Javier (sanjavier.es)
DDoS Attacks
In addition to leaked databases, hacktivists are claiming responsibility for shutting down Spanish websites, most of which are government websites. See below several websites mentioned by hacktivists (as of this writing, these websites are online):
- defensa.gob.es
- mde.es
- armada.mde.es
- ejercitodelaire.mde.es
- dsn.gob.es
- mjusticia.gob.es
- mineco.gob.es
- bancamarch.es
- fnff.es
- telitec.com
In conclusion, as long as the political tension in Spain continues, hacktivists will continue to carry out cyber-attacks against Spanish websites.
