December 16th media said that the governments of Poland and Lithuania said that they were the targets of a cyber attack, which seemed to be aimed at damaging the relationship between the two NATO allies.
According to Warsaw on December 15, Stanisław Zarun, spokesman of the head of Poland’s security department, said that Russia seems to be the culprit. He said that the type of cyberattack belongs to the recent Russian information warfare model against NATO’s eastern members.
Zaren said the cyberattack involved a fake press release issued last week, which claimed to be issued by the Lithuanian border guards. The fabricated statement said that a Polish diplomat was arrested for attempting to smuggle drugs, weapons, explosives and extremist materials in Lithuania.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania said that it “in cooperation with other responsible institutions in Lithuania confirmed that this is a complex cyber information attack”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania also said: “There has been an increase in cyberattacks aimed at undermining Lithuania’s friendly relations with Poland and inciting discord.”
Zaren said in a statement to the Associated Press that the cyberattack also involved a fake Facebook account that pretended to belong to a Polish local official and spread “news” in Polish.
“The way this cyberattack, the fact that it targeted Poland’s relations with Lithuania, and the fact that it’s another such cyberwarwar, makes us conclude that Russia may be the culprit,” Zarun said.
