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A cybersecurity firm, ESET, has identified Russian government hackers as responsible for a failed cyberattack in December that targeted Poland's energy grid, including power plants and renewable energy communication links.
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資安研究公司ESET指出，俄羅斯政府駭客是去年12月針對波蘭能源基礎設施（包括發電廠及再生能源通訊連結）發動的未遂網路攻擊的幕後黑手。
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A failed December effort to bring down parts of Poland’s energy grid was the work of Russian government hackers known for causing past energy disruptions, according to a security research firm that investigated the incident.
Last week, Polish Energy Minister Milosz Motyka told reporters that the attempted cyberattack on December 29 and 30 saw hackers targeting two heat and power plants, as well as trying to disrupt the communication links between renewable installations, such as wind turbines and power distribution operators.
Motyka called the incident the “strongest attack” on Poland’s energy infrastructure in years, with the Polish government blaming Moscow for the attempt. Local media reported that the attacks could have knocked out heat and power for at least half a million homes across the country.
On Friday, cybersecurity firm ESET said it obtained a copy of the destructive malware, which it calls DynoWiper. This type of malware, known as “wiper” malware, is designed to irreversibly destroy data on computers to prevent them from working.
ESET attributed the malware with “medium confidence” to the hacking group known as Sandworm, a unit within Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, based on a “strong overlap” with its previous research into Sandworm’s past malware, including the group’s use of destructive malware to target Ukraine’s energy sector.
Independent journalist Kim Zetter first reported the news.
As noted by Zetter, the cyberattacks targeting Poland come almost exactly a decade after Sandworm’s first-known cyberattack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in 2015, which caused power outages for more than 230,000 homes around the country’s capital, Kyiv. A similar cyberattack hit Ukraine’s energy systems a year later.
Following the attempted hack, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said that the country’s cybersecurity defenses worked, and “at no point was critical infrastructure threatened.”
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Zack Whittaker is the security editor at TechCrunch. He also authors the weekly cybersecurity newsletter, this week in security.
He can be reached via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal. You can also contact him by email, or to verify outreach, at [email protected].
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