Researchers say Russian government hackers were behind attempted Poland power outage | TechCrunch

"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."

"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.""

Russian government-linked hackers deployed destructive malware in a late-December attempt to disable parts of Poland's energy grid. The attack on December 29–30 targeted two heat and power plants and sought to disrupt communication links between renewable installations and distribution operators. Cybersecurity firm ESET obtained a sample called DynoWiper, categorizing it as "wiper" malware designed to irreversibly destroy data. ESET attributed the code with medium confidence to Sandworm, a unit of Russia's GRU, citing strong overlap with the group's previous energy-sector malware used against Ukraine. Polish officials said defenses held and critical infrastructure was not threatened.

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