In Poland again complain about Russian hackers

Recently, Poland has once again been the victim of hacking designed to expose the Polish army and Polish-American military cooperation in a negative light. The press secretary of the Minister-Coordinator of Special Services Stanisław Zharyn made such a presentation. The content of the materials was anti-Polish, implying that the American army accused the Poles of poor preparation for Defender 20 exercises, as well as weak combat readiness of the Polish army and almost in infrastructure collapse, transmits his words to Polish Radio. As Kamil Basai, a cybersecurity expert at Info Ops Polska Foundation, told Polish Radio, the recent hacking of Polish media websites is intended to create a negative image of the Polish army and make fun of the military alliance between Poland and the United States. Disinformation aimed at Polish-American or more widely Polish-transatlantic relations has been pursued by the Russian Federation for many years. One of the elements we identify when studying these phenomena is the strengthening of these actions in a situation where, for example, military exercises are held, said the expert. According to Kamil Basay, the victims of hacker attacks were websites of such media as niezalezna. pl, telewizjarepublika. pl i radioszczecin.pl. Negative materials about the state of the Polish army were posted on the websites. To a direct question about the involvement in these cases of the Russian special services, the expert answered evasively. In his opinion, these actions are aimed at the information security of Poland. They fit into the action model of introducing a false manipulative message into the information environment, he said. The NATO Defender Europe-20 exercise begins on June 5. According to the expert, due to the fact that the exercises are entering the active phase, it is necessary to expect more activity of Russian and pro-Russian media, as well as criminal actions, such as cyber attacks and placement of falsified materials.