Geopolitically Driven Cyber Activity and Hybrid Operations Escalate Across Europe and Major Events

Multiple reports describe an uptick in state-linked and politically motivated cyber activity in Europe, framed as part of broader hybrid warfare. Dutch intelligence (AIVD/MIVD) warned that Russia is intensifying a mix of cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation, covert influence, and espionage designed to stay below the threshold of open conflict while testing Western red lines and undermining support for Ukraine. Related policy commentary notes growing calls from European and NATO officials for stronger “strike back” or offensive cyber capacity, but argues that political will and proportional response options—especially against proxy-driven sabotage—remain the limiting factors rather than technical capability.

Separately, threat reporting tied to the 2026 Winter Olympics indicates increased hacktivist mobilization and targeting chatter against Olympic-adjacent entities (e.g., transportation, sponsors, and overlapping supply chains), alongside continued targeting of the defense industrial base by a mix of hacktivists, state actors, and cybercriminals. A case study on Venezuela’s Caracas outage during “Operation Absolute Resolve” cautions against attributing major disruptions to “cyber-only” effects when available evidence also indicates substantial kinetic/physical damage to substations, underscoring that modern operations may integrate cyber and physical actions and that misframing can distort infrastructure security priorities.