crime
Federal government confirms cyber attacks on several authorities
In so-called DDoS attacks (“Distributed Denial of Service”), attackers try to paralyze servers with a flood of requests. Photo: Matthias Balk/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
In the past few days there have been a series of cyber attacks on several German authorities and ministries, which the federal government has now confirmed. Who is behind the attacks?
The federal government has confirmed a series of cyber attacks on German authorities and ministries in the past few days.
The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) was also affected, as BKA Vice President Martina Link reported on Monday at a conference in Berlin. The spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Maximilian Kall, said that the relatively simple overload attacks had been successfully repelled and, according to the current state of knowledge, had not caused any permanent damage. No data was leaked either.
In so-called DDoS attacks (“Distributed Denial of Service”), attackers try to paralyze servers with a flood of requests. The federal authorities have “not been able to detect any major cyber attacks since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24,” said the spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Attacks on websites of German authorities
The “Spiegel” had reported that Russian hackers had launched attacks on the websites of German authorities, making them temporarily unavailable. According to information from the news magazine, the attacks were directed against the Ministry of Defence, the Bundestag, the federal police and several state police authorities. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD website is also said to have been affected.
The Russian hacker group “Killnet” has acknowledged this in the messenger service Telegram, Link said. However, it has not yet been finally clarified who is behind the attacks. The intensity of the attacks, which were primarily aimed at government agencies’ websites, was “manageable” overall.
Overall, the following applies to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine: “This is a war that is also being waged to a not inconsiderable extent in cyberspace.” Link said that hacker groups that showed solidarity with the Russian side could be observed, as well as those that wanted to support Ukraine. “The boundaries between criminals and possibly state-controlled cyber groups are becoming blurred.”