In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Gawkowski described the incident as “very serious,” warning that criminals had gained access to sensitive personal information, including names, national identification numbers (PESEL), ID card details, email and home addresses, phone numbers, nationality, marital status, number of children, employment details, employer contact information, declared income, bank account numbers, and Facebook identifiers.
The minister said that Poland’s national cybersecurity teams - CSIRT KNF (responsible for financial institutions) and CSIRT NASK (the national research network) - are already investigating the breach and that the Polish Personal Data Protection Office has been notified. “State services are working to identify the perpetrators,” he wrote.
Poles told to secure national ID numbers as hackers target sensitive data
Gawkowski urged affected users to exercise extreme caution, change their passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and use the government’s mObywatel mobile app to block their PESEL number - a unique personal identifier used in Poland that can be exploited for identity theft.
The politician added that a new government website, bezpiecznedane.gov.pl, would soon allow citizens to check whether their data had been compromised.
“This kind of cyberattack is becoming an everyday reality,” Gawkowski warned. “Every company and institution must be properly prepared - and every one of us must remain alert to online scams. That’s where criminals now operate, often in organised crime groups.”
The breach follows Saturday’s reports of two other major digital security incidents in Poland - a temporary outage of the BLIK mobile payment system and a data leak affecting the ITAKA travel agency.
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Source: Radio Poland/IAR/X/@KGawkowski