Spanish daily El Pais nevertheless published a set of articles about “Russian hackers” supporting the separatists, accusing the Russian media’s alleged bias on the crisis in Catalonia.
“Russia has a nationalist agenda, and it supports nationalist, populist movements in Europe because that serves to divide Europe,” Mira Milosevich, a senior analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute claimed.
The Spanish National Cryptologic Center with the country’s National Intelligence Center recorded 70 cyberattacks on governmental sites, performed by the Anonymous hacker group, Sputnik News reported.
“The research has shown that these have been low-level attacks, which have been discussed on various forums on social media, related to hackers groups, in various EU countries and outside the bloc. All these actions by no means have been connected with cyberattacks, authorized by governments,” the center revealed on Tuesday.
The used IP addresses, associated with certain countries, however, but were not related to the governments of those countries, the authority noted.
Catalonia’s separatist leaders have also denied that Russian hackers had helped them in the vote.
Luis Jimenez, heads of the Spanish National Cryptologic Centre, and Javier Candau, the authority’s cybersecurity department chief, said in their report on Tuesday that only two hacks represented a threat. One of the attacks targeted the Spanish Constitutional Court, lasting 30 minutes.
This year, Spanish governmental institutions and strategic institutions were targeted by 27 000 cyberattacks, but only 5 percent of these attack have represented serious danger. Some 3.7 hacker attacks are performed daily on average, according to the report.
The Catalonia crisis erupted over the October 1 independence referendum in the Spanish autonomous region, with Madrid invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, and re-introducing direct rule in Catalonia, and disolving the regional parliament.
The Russian Embassy in Spain admonished Spanish media outlets and public figures for spreading false rumors and fake news about an alleged “Russian hand” in Catalonian crisis, after Spain’s defense and foreign ministers claimed to have evidence that state and private-sector Russian groups, as well as groups in Venezuela, used Twitter, Facebook and other Internet sites to massively swing public opinion, Reuters reported.
Spanish Defence Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal accused Russia of meddling at a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers in Brussels.
“These are groups that, public and private, are trying to influence the situation and create instability in Europe,” she told reporters.
Also at the meeting, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis was questioned on the veracity of the “Russian hacker” claim. “Yes, we have proof,” Dastis declared.
Ramon Tremosa, the EU lawmaker for the PDeCat party of separatist leader Carles Puigdemont also denied Russian interference in the referendum.
“Those that say Russia is helping Catalonia are those that have helped the Russian fleet in recent years, despite the EU’s boycott,” Tremosa tweeted. According to Spanish media reports Russian warships refuel at Spanish ports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as other officials, has repeatedly said that Moscow considers the Catalan crisis a Spanish domestic issue.
On the Catalonian crisis, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor tweeted: “What is happening in Catalonia in the most significant Western conflict between people and state since the fall of the Berlin Wall — but its methods are 2017, from VPNs, proxies, mirrors and encrypted chat to internet surveillance and censorship, bot propaganda and body armor.”