Venezuela denounces ongoing cyber coup at the UN
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Published at: 09/08/2024 11:37 PM
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, through Ambassador Joaquín Pérez, Alternate Permanent Representative to the UN, participated this Friday in the adoption of the “United Nations Convention against Cybercrime: Strengthening international cooperation for the fight against certain crimes committed through information and communication technology systems and for the electronic transmission of evidence of serious crimes”.
During the session at the headquarters of the organization in New York, the diplomat congratulated the work of the responsible Special Committee and pointed out that this milestone achieved “represents a privileged opportunity for this Organization to take concrete steps, among others, towards an end to the perpetration of cyberattacks, such as the one that is currently under way in our country.”
He stressed that the adoption of the Convention comes at a time of special relevance for Venezuela, since last Sunday, July 28, it held an electoral process, in which, despite the environment of peace and citizenship, the Venezuelan electoral system, which is fully electronic and automated, “has since been the victim of more than thirty million cyberattacks per minute, an issue that was followed by massive attacks against all government portals” in the South American country.
The Ambassador denounced that this massive cyberattack is part of a clear destabilization operation that sought, on the one hand, to generate an information blackout, and, on the other, to consolidate a coup against the nation's constitutional authorities and institutions.
“The magnitude of this new aggression against Venezuela, which includes, precisely, the malicious use of ICTs, highlights the importance of this Convention and how these so-called cybercrimes are used criminally to advance disinformation campaigns; to curtail the right to inform and be informed; to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign States, including in their electoral processes; to promote chaos, anxiety and violent extremism leading to terrorism; to attack against national, regional and international peace and stability; and to even try to impose regimes that are subservient to the interests of those who, directly or indirectly, participate or benefit from the execution of these cybercrimes,” he warned.
The diplomat also welcomed the inclusion in the Convention of exhaustive language on the criminalization of attacks against the vital infrastructure of States, since Venezuela, in addition to its electoral system, has also received cyberattacks against the national electricity system and other strategic sectors, including the oil and gas industry.
Pérez specified that they insisted from the beginning of the discussions that the emphasis of this Convention must be on preventing and combating cybercrime, over areas that are already addressed by other existing international instruments, “hence, for our country, paragraphs 6.2, 24 and 40.22 of the text that was adopted yesterday are inconsistent with what we believe should be the object of this Convention.”
He also emphasized that for Venezuela, “this new instrument represents a qualitative advance in the fight against the use of ICTs for criminal purposes, since it opens up spaces for international cooperation to combat this atrocious scourge, in the midst of a world of chaos and deregulation in the matter, including everything that has to do with social networks.”