Massive Blackout Hits Spain and Portugal
Cybercriminal activity may be the cause of the large-scale blackouts that struck Spain and Portugal on Monday afternoon, crippling critical infrastructure and daily life across the Iberian Peninsula.
At approximately midday local time, electrical systems began to fail in both countries. The islands remained mostly unaffected, while reports from Le Figaro indicated that the French Basque Country also experienced brief outages.
Infrastructure, Communications Severely Disrupted
According to Spanish newspaper El País, the outages paralyzed key sectors including transportation, communications, airports, train stations, businesses, and residential buildings. Traffic light failures led to widespread gridlock, and there were multiple elevator incidents reported.
In Portugal, Correio da Manhã noted that police officers were deployed to manually manage traffic. Meanwhile, national broadcaster RTP reported that Vodafone attributed network disruptions to the ongoing electricity issues.
Cyberattack Under Investigation
Spain’s National Institute for Cybersecurity (INCIBE) is investigating whether the outages resulted from a cyberattack, though no official conclusion has been reached. Similarly, Portugal’s Deputy Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, told RTP 3 — as cited by Correio da Manhã — that a cyberattack is “a possibility,” though it remains unconfirmed. He also suggested that Germany and Morocco may have experienced related disruptions.
Potentially the Largest Cyberattack on Energy Infrastructure Since 2015
If confirmed, this would mark the most significant cyberattack on energy infrastructure since the 2015 BlackEnergy attacks in Ukraine — but with far greater reach. While BlackEnergy affected hundreds of homes, the current incident impacts millions across multiple countries.
A cyberattack capable of disabling such a large part of Western Europe would require sophisticated coordination. Past incidents, such as damage to undersea cables between North Africa and Europe, caused localized issues but never a nationwide blackout.
Historically, major attacks on critical energy systems — including those involving DarkEnergy and Stuxnet — have been attributed to nation-state actors, though no group has officially claimed responsibility for those operations.