COVER STORY
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Bleak retirement prospects Given that the value of Poles’ total retirement assets barely increased in 2011, the future appears dismal for Polish retirees, Rzeczpospolita reported. Poles’ total retirement assets amounted to z∏.2.35 trillion in 2011, up only slightly from z∏.2.26 trillion in 2010. A large portion of the savings, some z∏.2.1 trillion, lies in social insurance fund (ZUS) accounts, but some economists say that the deposits are merely state promises to retirees in the future and not real money.
High airport fuel prices in Poland The cost of refueling planes at Polish airports is higher than it is in airports in major Western European cities such as Frankfurt, London and Paris, according to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. In Europe, only Ukraine and Russia have more expensive fuel prices. In Paris, for example, Lot Polish Airlines can pay $30-40 less for a metric ton of fuel than in Warsaw. As a result, many airlines are now buying fuel abroad in order to avoid having to fill their tanks at Polish airports.
Disappointing profit for Orlen Polish fuel giant Orlen revealed last Thursday its estimated operating profit for Q4 2011 was approximately z∏.100 million, while analysts had been expecting at least z∏.700 million. Orlen attributes the disappointment to low refinery and petrochemical profit margins and a low Ural/Brent differential. Another factor is write downs on foreign investments, mainly in the Czech Republic and Lithuania. ●
JANUARY 30 – FEBRUARY 5, 2012
Cyber security
Hacker attacks highlight Polish vulnerabilities Alice Trudelle, Remi Adekoya Poland’s government websites have been compromised – will this be a wake-up call or will the warning go unheeded?
against Poland’s support for ACTA came days after coordinated opposition in the US to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protest Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Like SOPA and PIPA, critics of ACTA argue that the bill will stifle freedom of expression on the internet and endanger users’ right to privacy. The SOPA and PIPA legislation now appear unlikely to pass, but despite this and the cyber attacks on Polish sites, Prime Minister Donald Tusk refused to budge over ACTA, announcing that Poland would sign the agreement and would not “submit to blackmail.” The agreement was signed in Tokyo on January 26 (see story, p. 3). The prime minister added, however, that “only when the government is sure that Polish law guarantees freedom on the internet, will we send the bill for ratification to parliament.”
No one was seriously harmed by the cyber attacks unleashed on several Polish government websites last week. The attacks did, however, expose the inexplicably low level of security protecting those sites, and at the same time brought into question what would happen if more malevolent hackers were to target, for example, IT systems operating the country’s infrastructure.
ACTA opposition The hackers and online “activists” attacked Polish government websites in protest against government’s plans to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), launching a distributed denialof-service (DDoS) attack against the websites of the president, prime minister, parliament, Internal Security Agency (ABW) and other government offices. According to Poland’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska), a government body tasked with reacting to internet security breaches, apart from DDoS attacks, there were at least two confirmed “defacements” of government
VERONIKA JOY/WBJ
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ACTA protesters took to the streets of Warsaw last week websites: those of the prime minister and the Ministry of Defense. At first, the government attempted to deny what was going on, with government spokesperson Pawe∏ GraÊ saying the problems were “just the result of huge interest in the sites of the prime minister and parliament.” After the truth of the incidents became apparent, these comments
“The hackers are always one step ahead of us” quickly became a source of ridicule on Facebook and other social networking sites. A Twitter account using the name “AnonymousWiki” claimed responsibility for the
hacking and warned the government of further strikes if Poland signed the ACTA treaty. It also claimed it had “leaked documents on many of Poland’s officials,” and that if the treaty were passed, the group would not hesitate to make those documents public. These acts of “hacktivism” (the act of breaking into a computer system for politically or socially motivated purposes)
Security breach The apparent ease with which hackers brought down government websites raised serious security concerns in Poland, after hackers indicated that the login and password for the prime minister’s website were “admin” and “admin1”, respectively. These words tend to be place holders when a new system is installed, so website administrators can
Anonymous and Operation AntiSec Computer hacker group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for recent attacks on Polish government websites, including those of President Bronis∏aw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the Polish parliament and the Foreign Ministry. The Anonymous organization, sympathizers of which often wear Guy Fawkes masks (popularized in the film “V for Vendetta”), claims to have no specific leader, but operates instead as “a collective of people who come together online, commonly to stage a protest” according to the group’s Facebook page. The organization is opposed to both censorship of the internet and the fight
against internet piracy. Operation AntiSec is a series of hacking attacks performed by Anonymous and related groups, with LulzSec being the most prominent. The “operation” has targeted governments and private interests, including the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, AT&T, Sony, Viacom, Disney, EMI and NBC Universal. The groups have hacked into servers, taken over websites and made mountains of data – including credit card numbers and e-mail addresses – available to the public. LulzSec announced it was disbanding in mid-2011, but
more attacks within the operation have been undertaken by Anonymous and other “hacktivists.” “The Polish Revolution” as Anonymous dubbed the attacks on Polish government websites in late January, does not appear to be part of Operation AntiSec, and instead seems to have been specifically related to Poland’s intention to sign ACTA. Regardless of the motivations however, hackers have made their presence felt in Poland. How the government will react remains to be seen. VJ, AK