State Secretary for Security highlights that "DAESH has managed to attract more than 30,000 foreign fighters to fight in Syria and Iraq through social networks"

The State Secretary for Security, Francisco Martínez, inaugurated the 10th edition of the International Conference on Information Security in Leon on Tuesday morning, organised by the National Cyber-Security Institute (Spanish acronym: INCIBE). This forum gathers together experts from around the world to analyse the latest developments in the field of cyber-security, "a new dimension of reality that requires that we take on a new role with the same responsibilities we already have in guaranteeing the security of our citizens and companies in the traditional reality", pointed out the State secretary.

During his speech, the State Secretary for Security highlighted that the emergence of DAESH has meant a "tremendous qualitative and quantitative leap in cyber-terrorism". In fact, practically all the operations and arrests made by the National Police and the Guardia Civil were founded on propaganda, radicalisation, recruitment and the organisation of trips to conflict zones over the Internet. Specifically, during the 10th Legislature, 79 operations were carried out to combat Jihadism in our country, and 197 arrests were made. In 2016 to date, 28 operations have been carried out with 52 arrests.

Against this backdrop, Francisco Martínez warned that social networks are vital for DAESH and have enabled this terrorist group - with a huge production, in several languages and adapted to its target public - to attract more than 30,000 foreign fighters to fight in Syria and Iraq. However, he added that its production on the Internet, which reached its peak in 2015, has fallen off and is now having difficulties to maintain this desired vision of being a "State" that functioned.

As regards cyber-crime, the State secretary stressed that this is increasing year-on-year. In fact, he pointed out that in Spain, in 2015 alone, more than 60,400 cyber-crimes were recorded, 21% up on 2014. Francisco Martínez explained that this rise "is logical from the perspective of the offender because the balance of risks, costs and benefits is very much is its favour". He stressed that "Internet facilitates anonymity, cyber-crime multiplies the impact and thus the benefits of crime, and its virtual medium makes the job more difficult for both the police and the courts".

In this context, Francisco Martínez warned of an increased threat to mobile devices, both for individuals and for companies. He stressed that "it thus seems clear that there is an increasingly fine line between professional and personal cyber-security, and hence the need for public authorities to cooperate with each other, as indeed the State Secretariat for Security and the State Secretariat for Telecommunications and for the Information Society are already doing".

Progress on virtual security

The State Secretary for Security gave a detailed summary of the measures being taken at a European level, and specifically in Spain, to step up security at a virtual level. In this regard, he referred to the NIS Directive, approved by the European Parliament on 6 July, which obliges operators and suppliers of essential services to report cyber-incidents to their respective authorities. According to Francisco Martínez, this tool "will enable us to complete the construction of our national cyber-security system".

At a national level, the State secretary underlined the adaptation of our legal framework through the inclusion of undercover agents and the criminalisation of activities over the Internet related to terrorism, such as indoctrination, active and passive training and recruitment.

Moreover, he highlighted the use of new technologies to increase security and, by way of example, he referred to the software that the National Police use to enhance the traceability and monitoring of Jihadi propaganda over the Internet, and the Alertcops application for smartphones that allows citizens to get in touch with the police or the Guardia Civil through geolocalisation and with the possibility of opening a chat window.

From among these measures, Francisco Martínez also referred to the training and prevention work carried out with minors by the State law enforcement agencies through the Master Plan for Co-existence and Improved Security at education centres and similar organisations. He also highlighted the National Plan to Protect Public Infrastructures, updated in February 2016.