05/03/2024 – 17:47
Measure comes after revelation of hacker attack against Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic party. The Kremlin’s military intelligence service would be behind the action. The Czech Republic also says it was a target. After accusing this Friday (03/05) Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, of being behind a 2023 cyber attack that targeted the Social Democrats of the SPD, the party of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Germany announced the summons of the charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy to explain the episode.
“We have summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy,” a ministry spokesperson told reporters, adding that the government “will use the full spectrum of measures to deter and respond to Russia’s aggressive behavior in cyberspace.”
In June last year, the SPD revealed that its employees’ email accounts had been targeted by cybercriminals. According to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a recent government investigation “clearly” attributed the attack to a group “controlled by the Russian military intelligence service”: APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, which was behind dozens of other cyberattacks around the world and also targeted German companies in the military and aerospace sector.
The Czech Republic said its institutions were also targeted by the group. The Czech Foreign Ministry said on Friday it believed the group had taken advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft’s email program, Outlook.
According to German authorities, APT28 has been operating at least since 2004 on a global level, mainly in the area of cyberespionage. The group, “one of the most active and dangerous in the world”, would have spearheaded digital propaganda and disinformation campaigns in the past. He is also blamed for a 2015 attack on the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, and on the American Democratic Party in 2016.
How Germany reacted
Germany, which is part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and has provided military support to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, has seen an increase in suspected cases of espionage.
“It was a cyber attack on Germany, sponsored by the Russian state,” declared Baerbock during a trip to Australia. “This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable. And it will have consequences.”
The German minister, however, did not detail what these consequences could be.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser promised that Germany will respond to the act together with the European Union and NATO. “Russian cyberattacks are a threat to our democracy. We are combating this threat resolutely,” she said in a statement. “Under no circumstances will we allow ourselves to be intimidated by the Russian regime.”
The Interior Ministry statement also mentions that there was some evidence that the Russian cyberattack also compromised the servers of some German companies.
The Russian embassy denies that Moscow played a role in the 2023 attack against the SPD and claims that its handler categorically rejects the “unfounded and inchoate” accusations against the Russian state.
Reactions at international level
The European Union condemned what it called a “malicious cyber campaign” against Germany and the Czech Republic. The bloc warned it will use a “broad spectrum” of tools in its response to Moscow.
NATO expressed solidarity with the two countries in a statement. A similar gesture came from the Australian government. The United States asked Moscow to “stop this malicious activity and fulfill its international commitments and obligations.”
ra (AFP, Reuters, ots)
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