Weakness on display as wartime closes in on Europe

Europeans bracing for a growing campaign of sabotage on vital infrastructure and shops have been warned of a scaled-down campaign of Ukraine-style disruption.

Peter Watkins, a former senior Ministry of Defence official now affiliated with the Chatham House think tank, said it is probable that civilian sites will be increasingly attacked.

There are mounting fears that Russia and Iran could be working together to destabilise the continent after a series of cyber attacks aimed at supermarket meat freezers, airline bomb hoaxes and an attempted assault on a French blood bank.

“If Russia is behind these attacks on the freezers then it’s a softer version of what they've been doing in Ukraine over the last few months, which is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in order to make life difficult for the civilian population,” Mr Watkins told The National.

“The food supply chains would seem to be an obvious place for them to look.”

The cyber attacks against supermarkets this week, which also hit refrigerated containers used by the French national blood service, came as hostile states sense weakness in supply chains in vital infrastructure.

Europe was witnessing a major escalation of “grey-zone warfare”, designed to undermine public confidence in governments, said Megan Sutcliffe, a senior analyst at intelligence consultancy Sibylline.

Show caption: Empty refrigerated shelves in Belgium after the cyber attack…

“We're seeing an intensification of grey zone attacks and a real effort by countries hostile to Europe to undermine confidence in security, to disrupt the operational environment and basically make everyday life harder, so that public support for hostility to those countries decreases."

British officials have admitted an increase in hybrid warfare-based acts and pledged to resist infiltration.

"Overt or covert actions by foreign governments that fall short of direct armed conflict but go beyond legitimate diplomacy and expected statecraft, harm or threaten the safety and interests of the UK or our allies," the Foreign Office said in statement.

Hostile states' willingness to use cyber attacks was "a very well thought-out and very prepared programme of achieving incremental advantage,” said Dr Lynette Nusbacher, a former intelligence officer.

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European supermarkets face food losses after cyberattacks

Freezer wars

Attacking supermarket refrigeration systems was particularly significant because it showed how non-violent technology can be exploited to cause widespread disruption.

“The attacks on freezers is really quite innovative in terms of grey-zone hostilities and we should expect a similarly innovative approach when it comes to targeting critical national infrastructure,” Ms Sutcliffe said.

Huge amounts of meat have been thrown out after countries from Ireland to Finland were affected earlier this week. Hackers also manipulated defrosting settings at three blood plasma storages in France on Wednesday.

Governments are now urging citizens across Europe to stockpile food, batteries, camping stoves and water alongside wind-up radios in the event of a major attack that empties shelves.

The attacks, described as being “below the threshold of war”, include using drones to disrupt civil airports, something Germany has particularly experienced alongside Tuesday’s fake bomb threats.

Show caption: European airlines were hit with bomb hoaxes on November 3. A…

Sleeper cells

Oana Popescu-Zamfir, head of European security at the Rusi think tank, said Russia had already identified weaknesses in Europe's resilience, which could be exploited at short notice.

“If you manage to disrupt the port infrastructure, which has been attempted in the Black Sea, then you can seriously affect the food security of the UK,” Ms Popescu-Zamfir said.

The attacks should be seen as a sustained Russian campaign to weaken European support for Ukraine, with Moscow struggling to achieve a breakthrough on the battlefield.

“The implicit message is this: if you continue to support Ukraine, then you will be facing instability and you will be insecure everywhere at home,” Ms Popescu-Zamfir said.

The continent should also take seriously the possibility of sabotage networks and sleeper cells that have probably been activated by Russia and Iran in recent months.

“Intelligence services have been warning about the existence of Russian sleeper cells in Europe and this has been starting to materialise,” she said.

Show caption: Members of Iran's special IRGC forces. Reuters

Iran's claws

Tehran's incentive to intensify cyber operations could deepen if the US and Israel launched further attacks on Iranian energy sites after US President Donald Trump's loss in mid-term elections on Tuesday.

Iran has used social media to recruit people, paying them in cryptocurrency to attack Jewish, Israeli or American interests to expand operations in Europe.

Ms Popescu-Zamfir warned European governments should expect a sustained campaign of attacks rather than isolated incidents.

“Before facing any sort of conventional attack in Europe, we are very likely going to face a sustained series of what are still called hybrid attacks,” she said, which would be aimed at critical infrastructure, shipping or rail transport.

The likelihood of closer “strategic co-ordination” between Moscow and Tehran could also not be dismissed, Ms Sutcliffe said.

“There's an alignment in Iran and Russia's interests at this point in time and that is to disrupt the West, undermine cohesion, and undermine the relationship between Europe and America.”