On Tuesday (April 9), a seemingly innocent post appeared on the official social media profile of the Territorial Defense Forces (WOT). The post included a survey asking former and current soldiers to tag themselves with a heart emoticon. “We want the published content to be more and more valuable to you. To make this happen, we need to learn a little more about you and your expectations” – was the justification for the survey included in the entry.
Wonderful “fun” on the WOT profile. She was supposed to “draw attention to cybersecurity”
The entry was posted on the official WOT account for about three hours and received hundreds of reactions. However, it already caused considerable indignation among people who pointed out that this type of survey carried a high risk to the security of soldiers’ data on social media. There was a turnaround in the situation. The entry was deleted and instead there was information about the account being hacked. “Attention! Our profile has been taken over! Explanatory procedures are ongoing,” it read.
After some time, this message also disappeared from the account. It was eventually replaced by information saying that “none of the systems was taken over by third parties, there was no hacker attack, and no personal data was stolen.” Further explanations showed that the event was planned in advance and was part of an action aimed at “drawing attention to cybersecurity in the context of using social media.” It was also emphasized that all WOT soldiers undergo mandatory operational security training (OPSEC).
The activity on the WOT account was a deliberate experiment. “We sparked a discussion”
Lt. Col. Robert Pękala, press spokesman for the WOT Command, commented on the matter in the media. He informed that it was a deliberate experiment designed to check the reaction of soldiers and recipients of the social media account. – We sparked a discussion, there were critical comments against us, but when we explained the situation, these people agreed that we were right – he said in an interview with the portal. – The enemy’s propaganda uses catchy slogans, puts it into appropriate words and already half of the society would take it for granted. It’s about checking whether what we read is true, he also explained.
Source: Gazeta
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