Hacking attack on Germany was part of a worldwide campaign

Hamburg (ots) - The attack on the German government network was apparently part of a worldwide hacker attack that affects other countries. This is what NDR, WDR and SZ have learned from circles that are familiar with the processes. Accordingly, states in Scandinavia, South America and former Soviet states should also have been attacked. Ukraine is also affected. To which other countries it is concrete, is unclear. In Germany, a total of 17 computers are said to have been affected by the Trojan attack. One of them apparently belonged to an employee of the Federal Ministry of Defense, who was then serving in the Foreign Office. Therefore, it was said in the meantime, even the Ministry of Defense was affected by the hack. That's obviously not the case.

The Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution should have been informed shortly before Christmas, on 19 December, about the attack. The whistleblower should therefore have been a foreign intelligence service. One day later, the process should have been delegated to the cyber defense center. The Federal Criminal Police Office was apparently not informed.

From informed circles it was said, initially the end of 2016, the federal college was affected. There, the Trojan slumbered until 15 January 2017 and have not transmitted any information to the attackers. It was not until that day that the program evidently got the command from the outside and started analyzing the network and then sending data. In March 2017, the attackers were then able to penetrate into the infrastructure of the Foreign Office. The starting point of the attack was evidently in the Department of Property of the Federal Foreign Office.

The copied amount of data should have been comparatively small. Apparently, including documents with a Russia-related. Where the data flowed is unclear. The BSI apparently initially observed the Trojan and did not intervene in order to draw conclusions about the attackers and their strategies.