EU plans first-ever penalties against digital attacks from Russia and others
European Union prepares to hit back at cyber-attacks and election meddling with new sanctions package. Brussels aims to punish 19 targets from various countries for undermining EU stability
The European Unions envoys are set-up to meet this wednesday to talk about ground-breaking sanctions targeting cyber-threats (this includes election meddling and economic attacks). The new rules which came out in fall would hit 16 people and 3 groups with penalties
Jan Lipavsky Czech minister pointed to about 100 cases of russian-linked problems in europe this year; “We need to send a strong signal to Moscow that this wont be tolerated“
The sanctions list includes people from different places:
- Most targets from Russia
- Three people from Moldova Ivory Coast and Georgia
- One group based in Togo
NATO noticed more attacks across europe since Russia started its ukraine operation almost 3 years ago — these attacks hit many EU countries like Czech Republic Estonia and Germany. The cyber-problems got bigger in places like Latvia Lithuania Poland and UK
Recent weeks showed how deep these issues go: Georgiaʼs pro-russian leaders tried to stop EU talks which made people protest in streets; while Romania had big problems with its presidential vote because of outside meddling. The whole thing shows how EU is dealing with growing russian influence in europe
The new framework aims to stop digital-attacks election problems and money-related damage that hurts EU countries. Brussels wants to make clear that such actions will have real costs for those who do them
