Russian hackers attacked Poland due to NATO exercises

The Polish government announced a large-scale information attack by Russia, which is aimed at worsening relations between Warsaw and Washington, as well as the Polish army

Poland announced about hacker attacks on Internet pages and posting false and manipulative information about the NATO exercises Defender Europe 2020 on Polish and foreign resources.

“Poland again became the target of information attacks that coincide with the Kremlin’s actions against the West, especially against NATO countries. The organizers of such actions used well-known methods: hacking, spoofing content on web pages, as well as a fake interview with an American General,” said Stanislav Zharin, the speaker of the coordinating Minister in the Government of Poland for Special Services.

He added that the disinformation attack coincides with the beginning of the next phase of the Defender Europe-2020 exercise and concerns military cooperation between Poland and the United States.

As noted, as a result of hacker attacks on several Polish sites, materials about the training of Defender Europe 2020 were posted. The article was posted on the Internet pages of Niezalezna[dot]pl, Olsztyn24[dot]com, RadioSzczecin[dot]pl, ePoznan[dot]pl, which makes fun of Poland and its army.

These materials were blocked by the administrators of information resources, but after that, some of them again became targets of cyberattacks. 

The speaker of the coordinating Minister noted that the theses published in the articles coincide with the long-term actions of the Russian Federation against Poland. According to Zharin, the purpose of this was to strike at the unity of NATO and the possibility of joint actions of US and Polish forces, to destabilize relations between Warsaw and Washington, as well as question official documents regarding threats to Poland.

It is interesting to note that Poland plans to completely abandon Russian gas from 2022.