Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski reported that the services managed to break up a group of saboteurs. They are Russian and Belarusian hackers who attacked computers in Poland – those in the Polish Press Agency and the Polish Anti-Doping Agency. The cyber shield prepared by the government is to help us better protect ourselves against such attacks in the future.
Russian and Belarusian hackers targeted by Polish services. – In recent days, thanks to the cooperation of services associated with the minister-coordinator of services and services involved at the Ministry of Digital Affairs, it was possible to break up a group of saboteurs who had specific goals in Poland – said Krzysztof Gawkowski, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs.
The first target were computers that were probably attacked at the beginning of the year. – Someone hacked into the Polish Anti-Doping Agency and then copied data from dozens of computers. Then they waited a few months until the games started and shared the data on the internet – informed Adam Haertle, a security expert from the website wieszanatrzeciastrona.pl.
More than 200 gigabytes of data leaked onto the web. – This was information about athletes who are introduced by us to the registered group of athletes – said Michał Rynkowski, director Polish Anti-Doping Agency.
At the end of May, the Polish Press Agency became the target of another cyberattack. – A red, urgent dispatch appeared on the website, which allegedly stated that Prime Minister Donald Tusk had announced the mobilization of 200,000 men. (…) It's a complete lie, because neither the Prime Minister announced the mobilization, nor does an urgent dispatch from PAP look like that – recalled Wojciech Tumidalski, editor-in-chief of the Polish Press Agency.
This was supposed to be a prelude to further attacks, including on local governments and the security sector. These operations were thwarted.
Gawkowski: we managed to break up a group of saboteursTVN24
The government is preparing a cyber shield
In Russia, there are groups of government hackers who are subordinate to special services. They carry out two types of tasks in cyber warfare. – These are highly technical operations. These are intrusions into infrastructure, into computer systems, data theft, or destruction of this data, i.e. computer sabotage. The second type of operation is influence operations. These are operations that are aimed at spreading Russian propaganda – explained Piotr Konieczny from niebezpiecznik.pl.
In response, the Polish government is preparing a cyber shield. – We want to take the effort to change the regulations, which on the one hand preserve the right to privacy, the principles to which we are attached on the Internet, but on the other hand give the services the ability to protect citizens – informed Tomasz Siemoniak, Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration, coordinator of special services.
The planned changes assume that the regulations concerning communication using telephone numbers will be extended to internet communicators. Sensitive data will be stored only on servers in Poland, and the services will be given control over foreign optical fibers running through our territory.
But that's not all – Poland should implement the EU cybersecurity directive by mid-October. The new regulations will cover thousands of public and private entities.
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