The outage disrupted electricity supply across both Spain and Portugal, with most regions regaining power after ten hours. However, it took nearly a full day—23 hours—for Spain’s grid to be fully restored. Although no immediate signs of hacking were found, the duration and scale of the disruption raised alarms, prompting deeper scrutiny into the resilience of Spain’s decentralized energy network.
According to a report from the Financial Times, Spain’s National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) has reached out to various smaller renewable energy producers, asking whether they experienced any unusual activity before the blackout on April 28.
The inquiries also covered their use of recent security patches and whether their systems could be remotely accessed, signaling a broader concern over cybersecurity readiness among these suppliers.
This line of investigation is significant given Spain’s heavy reliance on renewable energy, much of which is generated by smaller, less centralized plants. The concern is that these entities, though critical to Spain’s green transition, may lack the robust cyber defenses maintained by larger grid operators.
While this doesn’t point to renewable energy as unreliable, it highlights how a fragmented supplier ecosystem could pose a collective security risk.
Cybersecurity experts have also weighed in. A blog post by security firm Specops Software compared the Spanish outage to known cyberattacks on power grids, such as those in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016. While Specops acknowledged the Spanish grid operators’ conclusion that no breach was detected through their internal monitoring systems, the firm noted similarities in how the shutdown unfolded.
However, Barracuda Networks’ regional director Miguel López suggested that if a cyberattack had indeed compromised critical systems, it would have taken significantly longer to recover, casting doubt on hacking as the root cause. Still, the possibility that attackers exploited a less secure third-party provider has not been ruled out.
This renewed scrutiny comes amid global concerns over cyber threats to critical infrastructure.
The U.S. and U.K. have both issued alerts about increased activity by pro-Russian hacktivists targeting industrial control systems. With recent research showing that 95% of critical infrastructure organizations experienced a data breach in the past year, Spain’s situation underscores the urgent need for improved cyber vigilance across all levels of the energy supply chain.
