Hybrid threats: NATO fears new serious acts of sabotage and cyber attacks

NATO fears new serious acts of sabotage and cyber attacks on the alliance’s territory. “We are observing that Russia in particular is increasing its willingness to cause physical damage and endanger human lives in our countries through sabotage,” said a senior official on the sidelines of the current NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels. China, Iran and North Korea are also active in cyber attacks. Both the Chinese and Russia carried out an ongoing campaign to spread malware.

This is about espionage, but also about being able to trigger disruptions in the event of rising tensions. Russia is focusing on critical infrastructure and especially industrial control systems, the official said.

Hackers publish confidential information

As an example of a particularly serious cyber attack that has already taken place, the official cited an enormous attack against the NATO member country Albania, which was probably carried out by Iran. This paralyzed the border control system and ensured that all files from the Ministry of the Interior were published on the Internet. “Every police investigation, every email between police officers, every secret witness, every court case and every Interpol file was public,” he explained.

Subsea pipelines are particularly vulnerable

According to the information, the underwater infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to sabotage. “In the NATO countries we rely on an extensive network of pipelines and cables,” said the NATO official, referring to gas, oil and data lines. There are more than a million kilometers of this infrastructure, which Russia is continuously mapping through a program that started decades ago. This also includes ships, submarines and unmanned and remotely controlled underwater vehicles. The Russians therefore have the ability to plant explosives or cut cables “whenever they wish.”

NATO also sees it as problematic that there is an imbalance in vulnerability because Russia is nowhere near as dependent on such infrastructure as the Allies.

From arson to murder plot

The expert cited other activities that were probably controlled by Russia as arson, the instrumentalization of refugees, attacks on railway lines and planning attacks against leading industry representatives. For example, it is likely that the assassination of the CEO of Germany’s largest arms company, Armin Papperger, was planned at times.

According to information from NATO, it must be expected that Russia will launch large-scale programs to influence elections in alliance states. As was recently the case in Moldova, the focus could be on the spread of false or misleading information, cyber attacks or vote buying. All this is an organized campaign, the official said.

NATO plans to update its defense strategy

In response to the developments, the foreign ministers of the NATO states want to decide this Wednesday on a revision of the NATO strategy to defend against hybrid threats. This umbrella term encompasses actions that state or non-state actors use to harm other countries without waging open war. As a rule, they are difficult or impossible to assign to a specific author.

According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, there should be, among other things, an increased exchange of intelligence information and better protection of critical infrastructure. There is also the question of how attacks should be repelled in the future.

According to the expert, it is high time for action. The problem is that people have gotten used to the hybrid attacks becoming increasingly more intense and frequent, he said. The result is that there was no appropriate reaction for a long time.

Most recently, damage to two fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea occurred within a short period of time in November. This involved a cable that runs between Sweden and Lithuania and one between Finland and Germany. The cause of this is still unclear in both cases. Swedish authorities are investigating possible sabotage. The investigators’ focus is on a Chinese ship called “Yi Peng 3”, which is said to have passed the affected areas of the cables at the time in question.