- Poland’s National Center for Nuclear Research reports thwarted cyber attack
- Systems and the MARIA reactor remained safe and fully operational
- Authorities investigating; early signs point to Iran, although false flag is possible
Someone tried to hack into Poland’s National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), the organization reported late last week.
In a brief announcement on its website, the research institution said it recently thwarted an attempted attack on its IT infrastructure and that its systems were not compromised.
“All security systems were operating in accordance with procedures, the attempt was blocked and the measures taken allowed for the immediate protection of the infrastructure and the maintenance of the continuity of the Institute’s work,” the statement reads. “No production, operational or research processes were disrupted and the MARIA reactor is operating safely and without interruption, at full power,” said Prof. Jakub Kupecki, Director of NCBJ.
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The Iranians are to blame
The organization didn’t discuss the nature of the attack, so we don’t know if the crooks tried to exploit a software vulnerability or engineered an employee to give away login information. For all we know, this could have been a simple phishing email with a malware attachment.
It was probably more serious than that, since the institution decided to report the incident to the relevant authorities and have its defenders on high alert.
“The National Center for Nuclear Research remains fully prepared to respond to any attempt to breach the state’s digital security and critical infrastructure,” reads the machine-translated announcement.
While the defense is up, politicians are pointing fingers at Iran.
“The first identifications of the entry vectors, i.e. the places from which (the center) was attacked, are related to Iran,” Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski told private TV station TVN24+, Pakinomist reports. “When there is definitive information and the services will check it, we will verify it, but there is a lot of evidence that it took place on the territory of Iran.”
However, Bleeping Computer also stressed that this could have been a false flag attack.
Via Bleeping Computer
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