Germany has expressed its discontent in the form of an official protest as the activity of groups linked to the Russian government intensifies ahead of the upcoming elections.
The German Federal Government has urged the Russian Cabinet to immediately stop cyber-attacks that threaten Germany’s security and the process of building democratic will.
From Russia with love
According to an MTI report Andrea SassiA spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry said at a government spokesperson briefing in Berlin that in the run-up to the Federal Parliamentary elections (Bundestag) on September 26, IT operations against the Bundestag and regional parliaments (Landtags), including phishing attacks, were in Height.
This activity could be linked to a “representative” called a Ghostwriter – a person, group or organization – who “has been combining traditional cyberattacks, disinformation and influence operations for years,” the spokesperson said, adding that the attacks were linked to the Bundestag. Actions such as “can be used to set up disinformation campaigns”. As he said, the federal government has reliable information that Ghostwriter’s activities “are related to the electronic activities of the Russian state, and more specifically to military intelligence, GU.”
Andrea Sasse said the attacks were unacceptable and, in addition to jeopardizing German security and democratic decision-making processes, they put severe strain on German-Russian relations. Foreign Minister Miguel Berger also called for an immediate halt to the attacks at a meeting of the German-Russian Security Policy Working Group (HAGS) in Berlin recently.
There was, there will be
In the recent interstate power chess game, the Internet and the actions that can be taken with it are becoming increasingly important. This is not the first time that the Russian government has appeared in the news on such a topic, among other things Donald Trump As disinformation campaigns on social media were given a major role in an election four years later, prior to last year’s presidential election, there were plenty of examples of manipulation and data collection in cyberspace – including, but not limited to, Russia.
In the United States, reports of more serious incidents have been mixed in recent months. Without wanting to be exhaustive, examples include a hack of the SolarWinds system (which the Russians have officially accused as an attacker), a ransomware attack on Colonial’s pipeline, or a recent action via IT vendor Kaseya.
But it’s also easy to find examples of cross-border cyber attacks from Germany, which is now a particularly hot spot due to the upcoming elections. Our paper also reported, for example, in Summer News that a serious IT attack has hit the German banking system and the country’s critical infrastructure. The hacker group, called Fancy Bear, with a Russian government background, has been named as the executor of the procedure, according to reports citing internal sources.
