BERLIN (Reuters) – Personal data and documents from hundreds of German politicians and public figures have been published online, in what appears one of the most far-reaching cyber attacks in a country that has become a target of choice for hackers.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel was affected, but an initial analysis showed no sensitive material from her office was released, said a government spokeswoman.
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Security officials have blamed most previous breaches on a Russian hacking group, while the Kremlin has consistently denied involvement in such incidents.
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Government spokeswoman Martina Fietz confirmed personal data and documents “belonging to hundreds of politicians and public figures” had been released online.
German media said a fax number and two email addresses used by Merkel had been published. “The information and data drained from the chancellery and that relate to the chancellor are managable,” Fietz told a news conference.
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Security officials have blamed most previous attacks on a Russian hacking group APT28 that experts say has close ties to a Russian spy agency. Experts held the same group responsible for an attack ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Bild newspaper reported that German authorities had asked the U.S. spy agency NSA for help in investigating the incident.
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- Discussion
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Germany's political establishment (except, oddly, AfD) gets hit by a cyber-breach so bad that Berlin has asked #NSA for help.
Wait, Fast Eddie said the REAL threat to German privacy + security was #NSA. Which, oddly, is what the Kremlin says too.
— John Schindler (@20committee) January 4, 2019
Odd, no?
"The contacts, private chats and financial details of figures from every political party – except the far-right AfD – were posted on Twitter."https://t.co/0AP1dhjSaB
— John Schindler (@20committee) January 5, 2019
This is a very important cyberattack. So…Whodunit? As usual, @TomRtweets has a solid explainer, recommended:https://t.co/8suV3c8bIe
— John Schindler (@20committee) January 5, 2019
Finally, there’s the possibility of a group of nonstate hackers aligned with the German far-right. The most obvious indicator here is the exclusion of the AfD from the attack. In addition, we must not discount the hatred with which the most virulent far-right activists view other German political parties. Their passion for embarrassing or otherwise hurting these parties would be motive enough for an attack that blatantly avoided the AfD. There is also the consideration here of the attack delivery server apparently being in Hamburg rather than a foreign location (although this could be mimicked). It is also interesting that the data was seized from private online sources rather than government servers. That would mean easier hacker access, making the attack more feasible for a nonstate actor. Yet what stands against the notion of a nonstate hacker or hacker group is the same that gives indication toward Russia or another state actor: the fact that this data is so varied it would have taken a lot of scaled-up activity to seize. Still, my likelihood of nonstate hackers being responsible is most likely.
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