Poland’s intelligence agency announced it has identified attacks on five water treatment facilities where cybercriminals could have taken control of industrial systems, potentially compromising the safety of the water supply.

This issue extends beyond Poland: U.S. water infrastructure has encountered similar risks in recent years. In 2021, a hacker briefly accessed a water treatment facility in Oldsmar, Florida, trying to elevate sodium hydroxide levels — a hazardous chemical — to perilous heights. The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have since alerted that water services remain vulnerable to foreign cyber threats.

On Friday, Poland’s Internal Security Agency, the leading intelligence organization in the country, released a report detailing the agency’s efforts and threats over the previous two years. The document indicated that Polish intelligence had prevented several sabotage attempts from Russian spies and hackers targeting military sites, critical infrastructure (including essential systems like power grids, water supplies, and transportation systems), as well as civilian locations. These assaults, as per the report, may have led to loss of life.  

“The most severe challenge persists in sabotage activities against Poland, driven and orchestrated by Russian intelligence agencies. This risk was (and continues to be) genuine and urgent. It necessitates complete mobilization,” the report stated.

The report did not clarify whether the hackers responsible for the assaults on the water treatment plants were Russian intelligence operatives. However, Poland has recently faced multiple attempts by Russian hackers to penetrate its infrastructure, including an unsuccessful effort to disable the country’s energy grid. That incident was subsequently attributed to inadequate security measures at the affected facilities.

Poland’s situation is emblematic of an expanding global trend of assaults on water and energy infrastructure. Just last month, a joint alert from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, the NSA, and various other federal institutions cautioned that Iranian-supported hackers are currently targeting programmable logic controllers — the industrial systems that operate water and energy facilities — at U.S. utilities. The same Iranian cyber group, CyberAv3ngers, had previously breached digital control systems at several U.S. water treatment facilities in Pennsylvania in 2023, in attacks that federal agencies connected to rising tensions in the Middle East.

In essence, the attacks against Poland are not isolated; they follow a tactic employed by the Russian government both in conflict areas like Ukraine and against Western nations perceived as enduring adversaries. According to Polish intelligence, the strategy aims to destabilize and diminish the West, with cyberattacks and cyberespionage serving as mere instruments in a broader toolkit for Putin’s regime.