Poland, after regaining full independence, has come a very long way from a underdeveloped, post-socialist country facing the problems of transformation from a centrally controlled economy through a free market economy with low GDP, high unemployment and inflation to one of the leaders in the region and even Europe. Back in 1989. Poland’s GDP per capita was only 32.7 percent of Germany’s. By comparison, the same indicator for Ukraine was 43.4 percent, Estonia 43.2 percent, and Hungary 48.8 percent. Currently, according to Eurostat data for 2022. Germany has a GDP per capita of 117 percent relative to the EU average, while Poland has a GDP per capita of 79 percent. According to the International Monetary Fund, our country is the 6th largest economy in the European Union and 22nd in the world.
As Poland’s economic importance grows, so does the position of our companies not only in the region, but also globally. Our importance is also growing on the political scene, especially in terms of the role we are playing in helping Ukraine in defense against invasion by the Russian Federation. Also of significance are plans to modernize our armed forces, which could make our country the strongest army in the European Union and a key player in this part of the world in NATO, which will entail further strengthening Poland’s strategic alliance with the US. However, all these factors could lead to an increase in threats to our country. Being “in the spotlight,” we will certainly begin to attract the attention of various forces operating in the world. Armies, public institutions and agencies can become targets of attacks designed to obtain classified and critical information for the security of our country and the North Atlantic Alliance. Polish companies can become targets of corporate espionage, or theft of intellectual property, data and money. Polish citizens, on the other hand, may attract the attention of thieves due to rising wages. While only a dozen years ago we associated the theft of secret state or corporate information mainly with spy movies, and the theft of the average citizen’s money with common criminals, today these phenomena are commonplace on the Internet. It’s the rise of cyber threats in our country that we decided to look at in this report to answer the questions of whether we have reason to be afraid, how are we performing compared to other countries, and what can we do to protect ourselves better in the future. The world is currently experiencing very intense conflicts on the cyberspace battleground, which we should look at and consider how we can prepare for similar scenarios.
