9-N Counseling Election Chart. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI
On November 9, 2014, the Generalitat ignored the warning from the Constitutional Court and conducted a referendum to find out the pro-independence movement’s ability to lure voters to a ballot box. This call, a very primitive repetition of what 1-0 would mean in 2017, garnered 80% of the vote in favor of giving Catalonia the form of its own state. The government, chaired by Artur Mas, described the day as a “complete success”, which took place amid what appeared to be normalcy. But as 2 million people crowded around the polling stations, several Generalitat services were blocked by a violent cyber attack. “The public health electronic prescription program has been paralyzed, the Mossos d’Esquadra switchboard has been blocked and, among other things, the applications that allow monitoring of mobility systems such as the railway have been disabled. It wasn’t an amateur thing.”
Jordi Puigneró remembers it well, being responsible for telecommunications and the information society at the time. “He was the highest policy officer for telecoms because the digital policy department didn’t exist yet,” he explains. The 9-N was chosen with no problems, but the engine room of Catalonia suffered a short circuit.
Nine years later, information released by EL PAÍS has revealed that behind this technological offensive was an Israeli businessman working for intelligence and state security agencies. Tal Hanan is 50 years old and a technology expert who has held senior positions in the Israeli army. “You have to know who hired him, because it’s clear that someone hired this man to do what he did and paid him a fortune to do it,” says Puigneró. “Then the PP government didn’t want to investigate anything, which is strange considering what was attacked was something they see as a state institution,” says the Junts per Catalunya politician.
The information whirlwind unleashed by the celebration of a pro-independence consultation in Catalonia eclipsed the attack on the government’s nervous system. But the shock wave this created was not small. “In 2014, the Generalitat budget for cybersecurity was €1 million, today it’s €20 million,” says Puigneró. “There was no awareness that this was a serious problem,” he says. The precautions taken with the computer framework supporting the database used to record the votes prevented the attack from thwarting the vote. “The consultation website fought back because it was on American servers, an ultra-security service that caused high costs,” says Puigneró and reveals the name of the tool: Akamai. “Since the website was not shut down, other Generalitat services were bombed.” The politician responsible for fixing this bug remembers that the computer technicians worked for three days to revive the applications: “There were emergency doctors who didn’t have access to their patients’ computer history,” says the former Director General of Telecommunications.
Protection
The fear activated efforts to accelerate the creation of the Cybersecurity Agency of Catalonia. “It was a demand that I put on the table and from then on President Mas gave every opportunity to make it happen,” says Puigneró. “Then I was able to start as a director at Quim Torra,” says the man, who sees himself as a promoter of the Catalan telecommunications shield. “The Constitutional Court itself has recognized that the Generalitat has the right to be able to defend itself on the Internet, just as we have the right to a public health service.”
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Puigneró joined Carles Puigdemont’s circle of trust and made his career at Junts. He was Vice-President of the Generalitat from May 2021 until five months ago, when President Pere Aragonès decided to sack him. The sacking hastened the unraveling of the governing pact between Esquerra and Junts and exacerbated deep differences between the two formations. Nevertheless, Aragonès joined his former right-hand man’s demand on Wednesday: “For dignity and justice, it is necessary to clarify the facts,” the president said, referring to knowing who was behind the 9-N cyberattack. Presidency Minister Laura Vilagrà announced that the government will examine what legal action it can take against the Israeli businessman who carried out the attack, as it constitutes an “illegal act and an illegitimate interference with the information systems of the Generalitat”. may be.
Artur Mas was banned from public office for two years on November 9, 2014, becoming the first regional president for disobedience to a court decision. This Wednesday, Mas demanded that it be clarified who tried to boycott 9-. N. “In view of the newly emerged information, we must demand that the investigation take place without excuses as soon as possible and get to the bottom of the matter.”
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