Scottish Power Parent Company Hit by Data Breach

Spanish energy giant Iberdrola has been hit by a cyber-attack that led to a data breach impacting over one million customers, according to local reports.

The Bilbao-headquartered parent company of UK provider Scottish Power and others said the attack occurred on March 15 this year.

It reportedly resulted in the theft of customer ID numbers, home and email addresses and phone numbers, but not financial information such as bank account details or credit card numbers.

However, that’s still enough information for scammers to craft convincing follow-on attacks to elicit more data, including bank details. Iberdrola reportedly warned customers to be on the lookout for potential phishing attempts seeking financial information and passwords.

The energy provider claimed the attack was remediated within a day, and further attempts did not succeed.

It’s also said that the raid came on the same day the Cercanías commuter rail network in Madrid, the Spanish parliament and several regional institutions came under attack.

There are suspicions that some of these may be tied to Russia’s conflict in Ukraine after it was revealed that computers in Siberia were involved in the attack on parliament. However, there’s no firm evidence to suggest Russian state involvement.

According to separate reports, Spain’s National Cryptologic Center (CCN) has warned that the Kremlin has been behind almost daily disinformation, cyber-espionage and other campaigns targeting Spanish entities.

However, the “spill over” or cyber-retaliation on Western countries that many expected following the Russian invasion and sanctions put in place by NATO members has largely failed to materialize.

In fact, cyber is just one part of the Russian arsenal. GCHQ boss Jeremy Fleming said late last week that a “cyber Pearl Harbor” was never likely to happen in Ukraine as such efforts are not central to Russia’s military doctrine.