Polish PM seeks secret parliament session on cyberattacks

The Polish prime minister has called for a closed-door parliamentary session to discuss a number of cyberattacks on Polish government officials, including one against his own chief of staff, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

The spokesman, Piotr Mueller, told the Polsat News channel that the sitting was necessary for the government to present a report on recent cyberattacks in Poland. He added he hoped the secret session could take place this week.

Recently the email and social media accounts of Michal Dworczyk, the head of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s office, and his wife, were hacked.

Mueller described those as a cause for concern but said that attacks on officials concerned more people than just Dworczyk.

“The scale of the attacks is very serious," the spokesman said. He said Morawiecki wished for the closed-door sitting “to present the scale of these very broad attacks that are affecting Poland.”

Russia is widely suspected to be the likely perpetrator of many of the attacks. Polish security officials often highlight disinformation and hacking that is aimed at weakening Poland's position internationally or straining its ties with Western partners. That is widely seen as a strategic aim of the Kremlin.