Poland says foiled cyberattack on nuclear centre may have come from Iran

Poland has foiled a cyberattack on its nuclear research centre and is examining signs that Iran may be behind it, the government said on Thursday, cautioning the indicators might be a deliberate misdirection to hide the attackers’ true location.

Poland says it has been the target of numerous cyberattacks since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement.

Minister for Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski told private broadcaster TVN24+ that the attack on Poland's National Centre for Nuclear Research had taken place "in the past few days".

"The attack may not have been on a huge scale, but there was an attempt to break through the security that was stopped. Appropriate services are already working", Gawkowski said, adding that the centre was safe.

"The first identifications of the entry vectors, i.e. those places from which (the centre) was attacked, are related to Iran," he said. "When there is final information and the services will check it, we will verify it, but there are many indications that it took place on the territory of Iran."

The Iranian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

The centre conducts research into nuclear energy, subatomic physics and related fields. Poland has no nuclear weapons and is building its first nuclear power plant.

The U.S. and Israel unleashed coordinated airstrikes on Iran on February 28, killing its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Tehran responded by hitting Israel and Gulf states hosting U.S. military installations, effectively halting oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz -- a conduit for roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG and petroleum.