Earlier this week, Carl-Oskar Bohlin (M), Minister of Civil Defense, announced that in 2025 a pro-Russian activist group had attempted to carry out a cyberattack against a heating plant in western Sweden.
The attack failed, according to the minister, but shows a changed modus operandi from Russia.
“Critical systems”
The attempt differed from ordinary cyberattacks as it targeted so-called operational systems (OT systems) that control critical infrastructure in society.
Niklas Keijser, a cybersecurity expert at security company Truesec, tells TT that the industry has known about such threats for a long time.
It's about the most critical systems we have, he says.
We have seen similar attacks in other Nordic countries. Access to these systems is exposed in a vulnerable way; they are easy to manipulate.
But why would attackers target, for example, a heating plant?
There can, of course, be several reasons, but according to David Lindahl, a researcher at the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI), it is often about creating chaos.
They want to create anxiety, so that we feel the world is unsafe, that we are not safe, he says.
He continues:
But it can also be about mafia methods. "If you mess with us, bad things will happen, so stop messing with us." But then, as a country, you have to understand what you yourself have done. It can also be to influence politics in a country. For example, Russia has been accused of supporting the division of the US through cyberattacks.
“Raise the guard”
To strengthen protection against cyberattacks, the government has initiated development work, including in the new national cybersecurity center.
We need to raise our guard. Digitalization has progressed very quickly in Sweden, but we live with some vulnerabilities because the cybersecurity components have not developed at the same pace. We need to increase the speed there, he says.
