Poland says it repelled major cyberattack on power grid, blames Russia

Poland narrowly avoided a large-scale power outage by thwarting what officials described as the most serious cyberattack on its energy infrastructure in years, the government said this week.

The attempted disruption occurred in the final days of December, when hackers targeted communications between renewable energy installations — including solar farms and wind turbines — and electricity distribution operators across large parts of the country, according to Energy Minister Miłosz Motyka.

Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said Tuesday the incident came “very close to a blackout” and bore the hallmarks of a coordinated sabotage campaign.

“The scale of this attack, the vector of entry, and who was behind it indicate that it was a deliberate attempt to cut off power to Polish citizens,” Gawkowski told local media. “Everything points to Russian sabotage.”

Unlike previous cyber incidents that focused on large power plants or transmission networks, the latest attack targeted multiple smaller sources of power simultaneously.

“We have not seen this type of attack before, but we should expect it to happen again,” Motyka said.

He declined to provide technical details about the intrusion, formally attribute it to a specific threat actor, or outline what security measures were introduced following the incident.

A NATO member and a key supporter of Ukraine, Poland has faced a growing number of cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The attempted breach came as Moscow continues to bombard Ukraine’s energy system with drones and missiles, triggering what Ukrainian authorities have described as an “unprecedented” energy crisis and leaving millions without power, heating, and water during freezing winter temperatures.