Russian hackers target Polish hospitals and city water supply

The Polish government is increasing its cyber security budget to a record €1bn this year, after Russian sabotage attempts targeted hospitals and urban water supplies.

Dariusz Standerski, deputy minister for digital affairs, told the Financial Times that Poland was facing between 20 and 50 attempts to damage critical infrastructure every day, most of which are thwarted.

But a few cyber attacks, “mostly” targeting hospitals, have been successful, he said, with two or three breaches forcing healthcare facilities to suspend operations for some hours. The hackers have also managed to obtain medical data, he added.

The latest spending bill will increase this year’s cyber security budget to €1bn from €600mn in 2024. Officials in Warsaw say the country is the most frequent target of Russian cyber attacks within the EU, even as Poland fends off some 99 per cent of these attempts.

A Russian-backed hacking attempt last month aimed to shut down the water supply of a major city, in one of the most significant hacking operations since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Standerski said.

The deputy minister did not want to specify where the attack occurred, citing security concerns, but noted that it was in one Poland’s 10 largest cities. The perpetrators managed to infiltrate the facility’s IT network, he said, but were stopped before they could turn off the taps for the city’s residents.

Standerski said the government was allocating €80mn this month to strengthen the cyber defences of water management systems, as part of a broader effort to secure public infrastructure, including systems used by its 2,400 local administrations. He welcomed the rare cross-party consensus behind the initiative in the country’s highly polarised politics.

On Monday evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that a drone had been “neutralised” while flying over the presidential residence and other government buildings in central Warsaw. Tusk said two Belarusians were arrested and an investigation was under way to determine the circumstances of the drone incident.

Last week Poland also faced an unprecedented incursion into its airspace by about 19 Russian drones, some of which were shot down by Polish and Nato aircraft — the first time Nato forces engaged directly with Russian assets since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Nato denounced Moscow’s “absolutely reckless” actions and announced the deployment of more planes and air defence assets to bolster its eastern flank.

Deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who also serves as digital affairs minister, separately told the FT that Warsaw was facing a growing threat from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave bordering Poland and Lithuania, which has become a GPS jamming hub for planes flying over that area.

Standerski said that over the past year, Poland had recorded up to 30 jamming incidents within a short radius from Kaliningrad. Western intelligence services also believe Russia was responsible for jamming the GPS signal of a plane carrying Grant Shapps, then UK defence secretary, on his way back from Poland in March 2024.

Polish authorities do not believe that Russia is targeting specific aircraft, but is rather aiming for general disruption. “We see that sometimes it’s just a noise within the signal, but sometimes there is no signal at all,” Standerski said.