2024-05-31 18:08 update: 2024-06-01, 16:00
Photo PAP/Albert Zawada
The Polish Press Agency (PAP) has acknowledged that it has been the target of a cyberattack and stated that efforts are being made to enhance its security measures.
"The Polish Press Agency (PAP) has been hit by a cyberattack; all pertinent information regarding this critical incident is currently being provided to the relevant authorities," PAP's liquidator Marek Blonski and PAP's editor-in-chief Wojciech Tumidalski wrote in a joint statement on Friday afternoon.
"We are working to strengthen the security of all our systems and services," Blonski and Tumidalski added.
They also wrote that two fabricated reports informing about a partial mobilisation in Poland, that was to start on July 1, 2024, were released on the PAP service on Friday afternoon at approximately 2 pm.
"PAP was not the source of the reports. The reports, which had neither been written nor sent out by PAP staff, were immediately annulled and withdrawn from the service," Blonski and Tumidalski said and declared their willingness to closely cooperate with all services investigating the incident.
They also wrote that necessary procedures had immediately been launched and that "a path used to insert the fake report into PAP service had been identified and blocked."
Blonski and Tumidalski expressed their gratitude to PAP subscribers for their stance which had made it possible to quickly stop disinformation, which was the obvious goal of the attack. They also firmly opposed any insinuations that the PAP staff were responsible for disseminating the fake news. (PAP)
at/jch
