Special services: Poland is a regular target of Russian disinformation campaign

Żaryn told Polish Press Agency on Thursday that in recent months Polish special services have taken action targeting people involved in Russian hybrid war against Poland. "Thanks to the Internal Security Agency and the Military Counterintelligence Service, people involved in actions contrary to Poland's interest, as well as their modus operandi, have been identified" - he said.

He informed that "the services have determined that Poland is a regular target of Russian information aggression". "The Kremlin runs disinformation campaigns, uses enemy propaganda and reaches for aggressive cyber tools, in order to harm Poland and attack the West.

He added that "Poland remains one of the main targets of disinformation campaign launched against NATO members by Russia". "This is a necessary backdrop for assessing the recent cybersecurity issues in Poland" - Żaryn explained.

A few days ago, chief of CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Polska Przemysław Jaroszewski, who is responsible for investigating hacker attacks on public domain, said that since November 2020, similar attacks on accounts owned by politicians - like the one on Michał Dworczyk - happened at least a dozen times.

"Hacked social media accounts can be used to spread fake news regarding Poland's relations with NATO allies, as well as information on society or customs raising controversy and polarising opinions" - he added.

According to Jaroszewski, such actions are part of regular disinformation attacks that have been observed since 2018. "Escalation, in the form of taking over email and social media accounts, has occurred in late November 2020".

Last week, reports regarding a hacker attack on chief of prime minister's office Michał Dworczyk's email and his wife's social media account. The minister confirmed himself that the cyberattack had taken place. Dworczyk reassured in statements that "no classified, restricted, secret of top secret information" had been compromised.

Since then, emails allegedly originating from Dworczyk's account have been published on Russian communicator Telegram.

On Friday he informed that "attacks on his family's accounts in various communication channels were ongoing, even including his children".

Żaryn said at the time that the Internal Security Agency was examining the attacks.

On Wednesday, the government presented information on cyberattacks at a Sejm session behind closed doors.