Status: 06.09.2021 2:05 p.m.
The German government has criticized Russian cyber attacks on members of the Bundestag as completely unacceptable. There was reliable evidence that these could be assigned to the GRU secret service.
A few weeks before the federal election, MPs were targeted by cyberattacks for at least the third time. Last week, the security authorities informed the Bundestag about cyber attacks by foreign intelligence services on parliamentarians.
The federal government has now raised concrete allegations against a group with ties to the Russian state, which was already suspected of being an attacker: “The federal government has reliable information on the basis of which the ghostwriting activities can be assigned to cyber actors of the Russian state and specifically to the Russian military intelligence service GRU “, said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, according to the Reuters news agency. This is completely unacceptable and a danger for Germany.
It is a heavy burden on bilateral relations, the spokeswoman said. “The German government urges the Russian government to stop the illegal cyber activities immediately.” State Secretary Miguel Berger made this request directly to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry at a meeting of the High Working Group on Security Policy last week. “Further measures” are reserved.
Waves of cyber attacks
The members of the Bundestag had already been warned twice of cyber attacks by foreign intelligence services this year. Most recently, there was talk of attacks primarily on members of the Union and the SPD.
According to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the attacks were often directed against private and business e-mail addresses. Foreign intelligence services could then use the access gained through this “to publish personal and intimate information or even fabricated fake news on your behalf,” warned the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the BSI.
These are phishing attacks in which trustworthy-looking e-mails ask you to open malicious attachments or links to websites, which can then be used by malware and spy software to reach smartphones and computers. There had already been a massive cyber attack on the Bundestag in 2015, which was attributed to Russian hackers.