BRUSSELS (AP) — Germany on Friday joined NATO and other European nations in accusing Russian military intelligence of hacking top officials in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party and other sensitive government and industry targets. , warned that Russian cyber espionage would have consequences.
Relations between Russia and Germany were already strained, with Germany providing military aid to Ukraine, which was at war with Russia.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Verbock said Russian military cyber operators were behind the email hack of the Social Democratic Party, the main party in the ruling coalition. Officials said they did so by exploiting Microsoft Outlook.
Officials described a hacking operation that lasted several months.
Germany’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the hacking campaign began at least in March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and that emails from the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party were accessed starting in December of the same year. The report said German companies and war-related targets, including those in the defense and aerospace sectors, were also in focus.
An international effort led by the FBI shut down a botnet of compromised network devices used for cyberespionage by Russian hackers known as APT28, or Fancy Bear, in late January, the statement said.
“Russian state hackers attacked Germany in cyberspace,” Burbock said at a press conference in Adelaide, Australia. She claimed that the hack was carried out by units of Russia’s GRU military intelligence unit.
“This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and there will be consequences,” she said, without specifying what those would be.
A separate German statement said the hack took place over a “relatively long period of time” and also targeted various unidentified German government authorities, foundations and entities. He announced that the executive committee of the Social Democratic Party was targeted.
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The Council of the European Union and the Czech Foreign Ministry said Czech institutions were also targeted by the same group. German and Czech officials said the GRU hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook.
In a statement, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said EU countries “strongly condemn” Fancy Bear’s malicious cyber campaign “against Germany and the Czech Republic.”
The EU pointed out that it had imposed sanctions on individuals and entities associated with the group for targeting the German parliament in 2015, and said such attacks are particularly important in the run-up to EU elections in June. He stated that he would not allow the continuation of this.
NATO accused Fancy Bear of targeting “other national government entities, critical infrastructure operators, and other entities across the alliance,” including Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden.
The North Atlantic Council, the main political decision-making body within NATO, said: “We are committed to deterring and defending against cyber threats of all kinds to support each other, including considering a coordinated response. We are determined to employ the capabilities necessary to counter them.” .
Mr. Burbock has visited Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, and his trip will focus on security policy as China increases its influence in the Pacific region.
Foreign Minister Birbock, who was the first German foreign minister to visit Australia, said: “German-Australian defense cooperation is close and we want to deepen it and expand it together, because we face similar threats and… This is because we are in a situation where 13 years.
The discussion between Burbock and Australia’s Penny Wong centered on the Gaza conflict. “I think we all understand that the only way out of this cycle of violence that we are seeing in the Middle East at such great cost is one that ultimately ensures a two-state solution. ,” Wong said.
6 in 10 Germans would be reluctant to take up arms to defend their country if attacked https://t.co/J×v9ix8eUh
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