Poland Records Increase in Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure

Poland said that the country’s critical infrastructure is experiencing an increasing number of cyberattacks from Russia.

Polish Minister of Digitalization Krzysztof Gawkowski made this statement in an interview with Reuters.

Russian military intelligence, according to the minister, has tripled its resources for malicious actions against Poland this year.

He noted that of the 170 thousand cyber incidents detected in the first three quarters of this year, a significant part was attributed to Russian entities, while other cases were motivated by financial interests and involved theft or other forms of cybercrime.

Gawkowski said that Poland faces 2,000-4,000 incidents every day, of which 700-1,000 “pose a real threat or could cause serious problems.”

He said foreign adversaries are now expanding their activities beyond water and sewage systems and moving into the energy sector.

He did not provide exact figures on Russian activities and could not comment on the methods Russia uses in Polish cyberspace.

“Russia’s actions are the most serious because they are aimed at critical infrastructure necessary to maintain normal life,” Gakowski said.

This statement comes after a large-scale cyberattack that rocked several European airports on Saturday, September 20.

On October 2, a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeted Latvia’s state-owned websites.