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Polish intelligence services are investigating a cyberattack on its railways. According to the Polish Press Agency (PAP), the hackers broke into railway frequencies to disrupt traffic in the north-west of the country overnight.
Furthermore, the signals were reportedly interspersed with a recording of Russia’s national anthem and a speech by President Vladimir Putin.
For important context, Poland has been a major transit stop for Western weapons that are being sent to Ukraine to aid in the war with Russia.
According to BBC News, Saturday’s incident happened when hackers transmitted a signal that triggered an emergency halt of trains near the city of Szczecin. Approximately 20 trains were forced to a standstill, but services were restored within hours nevertheless.
A senior security official named Stanislaw Zaryn provided a statement saying that Poland’s internal security service ABW was investigating the whole situation and that for the moment they are ruling nothing out.
Zaryn added that they have been aware of attempts to destabilize the Polish state for some months now, stating that “Such attempts have been undertaken by the Russian Federation in conjunction with Belarus.”
In response to this, several Western countries have called for increased cyber-security precautions, as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict unfolds and affects all of Europe.
There are experts who claim that Russia is supposedly carrying out cyberattacks in Ukraine in an attempt to test its hacking tools, allegations to which Russia responded by calling them “Russophobic”.
