German Government Suspects Russia of Cyberattacks

Approximately 900,000 Internet users in Germany experienced severe outages on November 28 in an event which telecommunication companies attributed to cyberattacks. German provider Deutsche Telekom stated that the internet disruptions were failed attempts by hackers to turn routers into botnets, a remotely controlled network of private computers infected with malicious software that launches more network attacks.

State Secretary Steffen Seibert, head of the German Press and Information Office, claimed that the incident reinforced the importance of addressing cybersecurity and securing infrastructure in the digital realm to prevent attacks of larger scale. Germany’s leadership took a step further and speculated that Russia might have launched the cyberattacks. Chancellor Angela Merkel stated, "I don't have any concrete information about the origin of the attacks on the Telekom network.... Let me just say that such cyberattacks, or 'hybrid attacks' as they're known in Russian doctrine, are part of everyday life today, and we need to learn to deal with them.”

There are growing worries among German government officials that such cyberattacks will become a precedent for more attempts to possibly delegitimize Germany’s democratic process. Bruno Kahl, the new president of the German Intelligence Agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), expressed particular concern about external interference in the German federal elections in August 2017. He explained the dangers of programs that penetrate media websites to spread conspiracies or misleading news headlines, which might divert the public’s attention from policy discussions and falsely discredit candidates.  

While investigators still know little about who perpetrated the cyber attack, this incident has given the German government an opportunity to evaluate current cybersecurity infrastructure on commonly used routers. Yet, the method by which the German government should approach cybersecurity appears divided between political parties. Konstantin von Notz, the vice-chairman of the Green Party and spokesman for internal policy, argued, “There is no sign of a comprehensive government strategy to counter internet attacks…. That the federal government has not dealt with these questions for so many years is a serious failure and a real security problem.” To respond to this criticism, Merkel’s Interior Ministry has proposed setting up another unit of IT specialists, who can be contacted when an emergency cyber attack targets critical agencies like the government, power stations, or electronic systems in hospitals.

The more conservative parties, on the other hand, argued that the electronic companies should be held more accountable for the risks their products and services present. Thomas Jarzombek, conservative member of parliament and digital media expert, noted that this attack on Telekom exposed an evident weakness: the desire to replace secure quality with cheaper products. This preference needs to be changed, he added, because someone who controlled 900,000 routers could easily employ the same method to attack state targets or official computers.