In 2022, ANACOM was notified by electronic communications network and service companies of 37 security incidents, one fewer than in 2022. This maintains the downward trend observed over the last six years (see graph 1). However, these incidents, had a marked impact in 2022, affecting around 6.4 million subscribers, which is a very significant increase compared to 2021.
Of the thirty-seven reported incidents, one had an enormous impact on the networks and services of one of the main communications operators in Portugal, caused by a cyberattack on its core network. This nationwide incident, which occurred in February and which received widespread media coverage, affected both fixed and mobile communications services. As attempts to carry out attacks of this nature on communications networks and services become more increasingly likely, it is of the utmost importance that efforts to adopt preventive and mitigation measures are continued in a coordinated manner.
The distribution of incidents notified to ANACOM was almost uniform over the year. The west coast region of mainland Portugal recorded the highest number of incidents in electronic communications networks and services. The average annual duration of security incidents was 16 hours.
Incidents caused by “Accident or natural phenomenon” were at the root of the largest number of notifications received by ANACOM in 2022. The causes “Maintenance or hardware or software failure” and “Failure to provide goods or services by a third party”, in second and third place, respectively, represent more than half of the total number of reported security incidents (56%), especially resulting from situations associated with power failures, broken optical fibre cables, system/equipment malfunctions and scheduled outages for maintenance work.
Graph 1 - Number of security incidents notified and annual change, 2015-2022
Unit: Number of security incidents
Source: ANACOM
In 2022, the majority of notifications impacted two or more publicly available electronic communications services. According to the notifications received, fixed telephony was the service most often affected, impacted by 43% of the total notifications received, followed by the fixed Internet service with 38%, and pay-TV with 30% of the total notifications.
Graph 2 - Notified security incidents per type of service affected, 2015-2022
Unit: % of security incidents
Source: ANACOM
During the last eight years, the three most affected services were, in descending order (graph 2): fixed telephony (67%), mobile telephony (55%) and mobile Internet (40%). Fixed Internet, digital terrestrial television (DTT) and subscription television were reported as affected services in 31%, 23% and 22% of notifications received respectively.
From the 37 security incidents recorded in 2022, information was provided to the public in 8 cases.
Five incidents were recorded that prevented users from making emergency calls to the 112 emergency number (14% of the total), with an impact on access to Public Safety Service Points; this is a very low figure compared to 2020, in which 32 incidents of this nature were recorded.
Consult:
- Report on breaches of security or loss of integrity (2022) https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1743909
