Millions of Poles woke up to a government emergency text on Friday, but the safety advice behind it was hard to reach. The website linked in the alert from the Government Security Center (RCB) went down under a wave of traffic, and Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski has ruled out a cyberattack.
The message arrived one day after a Russian missile was found in Poland. It carried the phrase „badz przygotowany” (original spelling) and a hyperlink to the „Poradnik bezpieczeństwa” guide. As of around 10:50 on Friday 31 July, the page was still not loading.
The alert was triggered by an incident that began at 3:40 on 30 July, when an unidentified object was detected in Polish airspace. An F-16 fighter was scrambled, but the object vanished from radar at 3:46. Its remains were located near Tarnawa-Kolonia. The Operational Command of the Armed Forces said it was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile with a significant quantity of explosives. An investigation is ongoing.
No DDoS, just crowds
Gawkowski said the problem was not an attack or a failure. Government portals in the gov.pl zone were struggling because so many people wanted to open the guide. He explicitly ruled out a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. Heavy traffic meant longer loading times, he explained.
– We have no attack, no failure. The RCB guide works, but we have enormous network traffic on government sites resulting from great interest, and this causes overload and could result in longer page loading times – said Krzysztof Gawkowski, deputy prime minister and minister of digital affairs.
Industry portal ZaufanaTrzeciaStrona pointed out that the RCB message teaches people to click links in SMS texts. For years, cybersecurity experts have warned users to treat links in text messages with caution because of phishing attempts designed to steal data or money.
Sirens, SMS and the app gap
The Thursday incident also raised questions about Poland’s warning systems. People living near the place where the missile was found did not receive an RCB text message after the event. Many were confused, and RCB declared it would draw conclusions and change its procedures in the future.
Gawkowski announced that the mObywatel application will get an alert module with warnings. He stressed, however, that this will not solve the problem of reaching every citizen in a crisis. The app is used by 12 million people, while the RCB alert reached 30 million. The sheer scale of the SMS distribution was what temporarily slowed down government websites.
– I encourage everyone already now, because the 'Safety Guide’ is available in the mObywatel app. The fact that there is so much interest in reading it is very good – said the deputy prime minister.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. Paweł Supernak / PAP
