Krzysztof Gawkowski about cyber attacks and attack on PAP

Today, we managed to stop the attack on important institutions that deal with water supply – said the minister of digitization in “Facts after Facts” Krzysztof Gawkowski. The deputy prime minister also revealed how last year's attack on the Polish press agency took place.

The deputy prime minister admitted that the scale of cyber attacks before the presidential election is “giant”. – Today is a bad day. We had attacks on important institutions that look after supplying water and sewage to citizens – said Gawkowski. He noted that the attack was stopped.

– There was a great threat that someone would not get water or would not be able to use the resources, which is particularly implemented by local government administration – admitted the guest “Facts after facts”.

“Russian attacks are increasing”

“There are such attacks, but the scale is getting bigger,” he added. – Today there were almost two thousand such incidents. There may be another, because the day is not over yet – he said. He also added that 60-70,000 attacks are reported per month, and the services take 200-300 interventions every day.

The minister admitted that the services register “more and more attacks”. – They grow, have different entrance vectors. Only the entry system is no longer attacked to steal the data, only infiltration is to block something or disable, for example, water or energy. (…) We see that from the beginning of this year the Russian attacks are increasing, there are more of them overnight – said Gawkowski.

The deputy prime minister also announced that tomorrow he will present a report “with a unique year of 2024, because there was no such large number of attacks on Poland.”

How did the PAP attack happen? “The employee shared the phone with the child”

Gawkowski also revealed how a hacker attack took place on the Polish Press Agency last year. – This attack went because one of the employees of the Polish press agency shared the phone with his child who uploaded the application there – he said.

At the end of May 2024, it appeared twice on the website of the Polish Press Agency A false message indicating the decision on the alleged consumption to the army ordered by the prime minister. Its source was not PAP. The services – including ABW – just a few minutes after a potential hybrid attack have taken action to detect the perpetrators.