Almost 700 schools throughout Poland were in May last year targeted by hoax bomb threats during key exams, private Polish radio broadcaster RMF FM reported.
It cited Polish investigators it did not name as saying that a detailed analysis of internet connections and a thorough examination of the content of emails with false bomb threats turned up ties to servers in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
Polish investigators have established that these servers were in the past used to spread content aiming to sow confusion in various parts of the world, the broadcaster said on its rmf24.pl website.
It added that, according to the investigators, the campaign was masterminded by individuals logged in to accounts used by the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.
RMF FM cited Grzegorz Małecki, a former head of Poland’s Foreign Intelligence Agency (AW), as saying that “this cyber attack on last year's school-leaving exams appears to be a part of Russia's hybrid warfare against Poland.”
Małecki added that “such activities are designed to cause chaos in key institutions in the state,” according to the rmf24.pl website.
He also said that the incident aimed to test Poland’s cyber defence system.
“In this way our capabilities are tested and response procedures are identified as well as the efficiency of these structures, and above all the maturity of the entire system,” Małecki said, as cited by the website.
(gs/pk)
Source: niezalezna.pl, rmf24.pl