Poland's energy grid was targeted by never-before-seen wiper malware

100 points by Bender 3 hours ago on hackernews | 13 comments

HPsquared | 2 hours ago

For what purpose? Cui bono?

breve | an hour ago

Russia is at war with Europe.

dijit | an hour ago

before anyone jumps on the pedantry bandwagon, its worth noting that even though open war hasn’t been called: the attacks on infrastructure especially cyber warfare is extremely active and, crucially, direct.

It is totally fair to say that in a digital context, Russia is absolutely at war with Europe.

As far as I can tell, they don’t even try to hide it.

reactordev | an hour ago

Not to mention the information war they have been waging globally since 2016

tosapple | an hour ago

What I am starting to appreciate about these digital infrastructure attacks is that they may be reversible and or temporary. It can be a nice feature.

rdtsc | an hour ago

Does Europe overall feel and act like that’s the case though?

It seems as if the European war has been pushed to the background recently, and most people kind of forgot about it. If you walk down the streets of Paris or Berlin does it look like it’s wartime, do people talk about it much, do they share the latest front news and so on?

joe_mamba | 14 minutes ago

>If you walk down the streets of Paris or Berlin does it look like it’s wartime,

Like what exactly would you want them to do? Run around screaming because there's a war 2000 km away from them?

No, people just go on with their lives, doing their jobs, taking care of family and friends, paying their taxes, so that specialized workers in the ministry of defence can take care of the war stuff for them. That's how modern society works.

It's even similar in Kiev, when you walk down the streets you see people living their lives. Gyms, bars, cafes, are full. People don't stop living and enjoying their daily lives just because there's a war somewhere else.

redeeman | 8 minutes ago

have you seen the competence in those who manage the infrastructure? i'd say i would need significant proof before assuming anything. And IF russia is doing it, I would still say that we should put 99% blame on the absolute incompetents running the infrastructure, 1% russia.

general1465 | an hour ago

Poland is a major logistical hub for everything going towards Ukraine. Thus targeting basic infrastructure like energy grid or railroad have to be expected.

On the bright side, using these weapon grade malware is burning exploits and also showing current state and techniques of Russian cyberwarfare which defender can learn a lot from.

IncreasePosts | an hour ago

The most obvious answer is Russia(or one of their allies like China or Iran) did it because Poland is supporting Ukraine in the war (directly, and also indirectly by letting stuff from other countries be staged and move through Poland).
Russia is currently focused at striking Ukrainian energy assets. Ukraine get energy imports from EU through Hungary and Poland. Hampering energy supply from Poland would but a huge strain on the already struggling Ukrainian network.

altern8 | an hour ago

If you're looking for what the damage was, it failed.

Potential damage: "Most notable was one [attack] in Ukraine in December 2015. It left roughly 230,000 people without electricity for about six hours during one of the coldest months of the year."

johanneskanybal | 41 minutes ago

With all the other crazy world-destroying us bullshit, is this also you? 50% you, 50% russia. It's an new gameshow, is it Russian or us?