Spanish Government Reports No Signs of Cyberattack in April Power Outage

Rabat — The Spanish government confirmed on Wednesday that no evidence of a cyberattack emerged in their investigation of the massive power outage that struck Spain and Portugal on April 28.

Officials also revealed the blackout began with a series of incidents in the southwest region of the country.

Speaking to the Spanish parliament, Transition Ecology Minister Sara Aagesen said the finding represents “very good news,” following a thorough analysis of all relevant data.

She stressed that investigators found no indication that the system operator, Red Electrica Española (REE), suffered any form of cyberattack.

This confirmation aligns with earlier statements by the REE Operations Director Eduardo Prieto, who dismissed the cyberattack theory the day after the outage, saying security teams detected no intrusions in the company’s control systems.

Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had initially urged caution, refusing to rule out any possibilities.

Read also: Spanish FM Albares Thanks Morocco for Critical Support During Blackout

During her testimony, Aagesen outlined the sequence of events leading to the major, unprecedented blackout that hit the Iberian Peninsula.

Investigators identified two major power grid oscillations in the 30 minutes before the outage, precisely at 12:03 and 12:19.

Following these fluctuations, three separate incidents occurred within about 20 seconds at 12:33 – the first at an electrical substation in Granada province, the second near Badajoz, and the third in Seville province.

Current estimates from system operators indicate that these three events collectively caused a loss of more than 2.2 gigawatts of electricity, triggering the automatic disconnection of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of the European power network.

The minister noted investigators still need to determine whether the two oscillations detected half an hour earlier directly contributed to the outage.

She called for patience regarding conclusions about the blackout’s origin, saying the government wants “to know the truth as quickly as possible.”

However, Aagesen added that the analysis “will take as long as necessary.”

Aagesen also criticized those who claimed to understand the entire situation “with absolute certainty” in the immediate aftermath.

“We will not let haste lead us away from the truth,” she insisted, while defending renewable energy sources that opposition parties had blamed for the outage.

The Spanish minister argued that renewable energies play a significant role in protecting the country against “external risks” to energy supplies.

Pro-Russian hacktivist theory

On the following day of the major blackout, pro-Russian hacktivist groups Dark Storm Team and NoName057 claimed responsibility for the power outage that hit Spain and Portugal.

The groups took to the X platform, writing: “Today [Monday], we and the NoName057 team succeeded in cutting off the electricity in some NATO countries,” and posting a cryptic photo with a list of Portuguese ministries’ URLs.

Mentioning NATO in their post, the hacktivists triggered doubts over a larger vision targeting NATO countries’ vital sectors through cyber attacks.

Spain’s recent findings deny any possibility of a cyberattack that led to the major power outage in the Iberian Peninsula, ruling out any potential theory of a cyberwar against NATO members.