Cyberattacks against the Catalan government have increased 200% in the first fortnight of September with respect to the same period last year. This was announced by the secretary of Telecommunications, Cybersecurity and Digital Society, Jordi Puigneró, on Catalan radio station RAC1. Puigneró said that until now they've been "low intensity" attacks, unlike those on 9th November 2014, day of the unofficial independence referendum, which saw "the most important [ones] and [those] of greatest scale we've ever had in Catalonia".
About the attempts to break into the Twitter account of the Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, the secretary explained that they were alerted to it by Twitter themselves and that they could block the attempt; they're now investigating who was behind it. Puigneró also said that it's "unbelievable" that websites are being closed and the same is being attempted with social networks in an interconnected world.
Puigneró highlighted that cyberattacks against the Catalan government have "suspiciously" increased 200% in the first fortnight of September, but preferred to not go into details while it's being investigated, although he emphasised that so far the attacks have been "low intensity".
On the other hand, he explained that the cyberattack they suffered on 9th November 2014, which left the websites of the Catalan government and other systems offline, was the "turning point" to "become aware" of Catalonia's need for an agency like the one the president presented this Monday morning. The Catalan Cybersecurity Agency, headquartered in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat is charged with defending the public digital activities of Catalonia, both those of the government and those of other institutions, and with supporting businesses and individuals who suffer cyberattacks.
The Telecommunications secretary lamented the "governmental interference by the [Spanish] state" in closing websites related to the 1st October referendum and said that they've looked for "alternatives". For Puigneró, social networks are "allies in the maturation process of 20th and 21st century society".