Over 4,000 Cyberattacks Hit Poland's Energy Sector in 2024: What It Means for Critical Infrastructure

Imagine a Morning Without Coffee... Because the Power Is Out

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, reached for your phone and wondered: "What if it wasn't the storm that knocked out the lights, but a clever hacker somewhere far away?" It sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie. In Poland, though, it isn't fiction. The energy sector keeps everyday life running, from charging smartphones to cooking dinner, and it is under constant cyberattack. This isn't the occasional slip-up. It's an avalanche of incidents that broke every record in 2024. Time for coffee? First, let's make sure the grid is secure.

What Exactly Happened? The Numbers Don't Lie

Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski presented a report at the CIRE PowerUp 2025 conference. According to that report, Poland dealt with more than 100,000 cybersecurity incidents in 2024. Of those, more than 4,000 (exactly 4.5% of the total) targeted energy organizations. The data comes directly from CSIRT NASK, Poland's national team for responding to hacker mischief of this kind. Gawkowski didn't mince words: "More than 4,000 of the incidents handled concerned institutions connected with the energy sector." And the consequences? Fortunately, 99% of them are neutralized. The remaining 1%, however, still adds up to thousands of potential failures that could cause chaos, from hacked systems to a digital blackout.

• Scale of the attacks: More than 4,000 incidents targeting the energy sector in 2024, with the Ministry of National Defense (MON), CSIRT teams, the Internal Security Agency (ABW) and NASK involved in the defense.
• Consequences: A direct threat to critical infrastructure. Even a single successful attack could cripple the supply of electricity, water or transportation.
• Trends: 2025 is already breaking records, and Gawkowski warns: "It will be even harder." Disinformation adds to the problem. In the first half of the year, more than 5 million Poles came across fake news about the energy sector, such as stories about the Spanish incident in April, where renewable energy sources were made the scapegoat.

Why Does This Affect All of Us, and What Can We Do About It?

The energy sector isn't some distant corporation. It means our bills, our homes and our stability. Attacks on this sector aren't just a problem for engineers in coveralls. They are a real risk for every one of us. Picture a blackout in the dead of winter because someone with a keyboard decided to test how resilient we are. These attacks are part of a broader trend of hybrid warfare, in which attackers combine cyberattacks with fake news to destabilize entire countries. Poland is holding up well, and that 99% success rate is something to be proud of. Still, it's better not to tempt fate.

Is It Just an Outage, or a Cyberattack?

Stay vigilant, but don't panic. Not every outage is the work of hackers. One example is the recent payment system shutdown, which many people first assumed was an attack. Read the inside story of the payment terminal outage in Poland.

My advice? Energy companies (and everyone else) should work with NASK, keep their systems updated and train their teams with attack simulations. And what about the rest of us? Use strong passwords, verify the news you read and support initiatives such as European Cybersecurity Month. After all, it's better to be safe than to wake up without power... and without coffee.

Read also about the overall scale of cyberattacks on Poland and Russian cyber operations against Poland. Learn more about APT28, the GRU's elite hacking unit behind many attacks on critical infrastructure.

Source: Strefa Biznesu

Aleksander