In 2022, Poland was attacked by five state-sponsored, professional hacker groups known as APTs (Advanced Persistent Threat), the Rzeczpospolita newspaper reported on Thursday.
Since Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there has been a rise in cyber attacks on Poland, notably by APTs, according to the Polish government's report on the country's cyber security last year, state news agency PAP reported.
Last year, five APT groups were active in Poland, including the infamous APT28 and APT29, according to Rzeczpospolita.
In 2015 and 2016, these two cyber spy groups were responsible for stealing the emails of America's Democratic Party and destabilising the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, the newspaper reported.
They are believed to be linked to Russia's military intelligence agency GRU and the Federal Security Service (FSB), according to news outlets.
In 2022, Poland was also attacked by three other APT groups, Turla and UAC-0056, thought to be linked to Russia, and the Chinese group Mustang Panda, known for attacks on US think tanks and NGOs, Rzeczpospolita reported.
The Polish government's 2022 cyber security report details the activities of Russian President Vladimir "Putin's cyber spies," the PAP news agency reported.
APT29 in May last year sent out emails purportedly from the Portuguese embassy in Poland, with an infected link that, if clicked on, granted hackers access to the recipients' computers, according to Polish officials.
APT29 carried out another campaign in Poland in October 2022, purporting to be the embassy of Serbia, Rzeczpospolita reported.
Meanwhile, Turla used malware called "+Soviet monuments in Poland.xII+" and containing a list of Soviet memorials in Poland, the newspaper said.
The Polish government's 2022 cyber security report includes many technical details of these attacks, without naming targets and whether any data was stolen, Rzeczpospolita reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: rp.pl, PAP
