According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, 14 politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia are affected by a “phishing attack”.
The Russian secret service GRU could be behind the cyber attack.
Düsseldorf - In North Rhine-Westphalia, 14 members of the state parliament and municipal elected officials are affected by a cyber attack, the protection of the constitution announced.
The Russian secret service GRU is believed to be behind the attack.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has already been able to reach eleven of the politicians affected, said the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior on Monday at the request of the
German Press Agency
.
In addition, the President of the State Parliament had been informed.
Several members of the Bundestag and Landtag are affected by the "phishing attacks"
Last week it became known that several members of the Bundestag and Landtag were the target of so-called "phishing attacks" via e-mails.
“The e-mails say that the security of the mailbox is at risk.
Therefore it has to be blocked and it is referred to a link - allegedly to avoid blocking.
If this link is clicked, the attackers receive the access data for the email account.
At the moment, private e-mail accounts at GMX and T-Online are particularly affected, ”said a spokeswoman for the Düsseldorf Ministry of the Interior.
According to the ministry, the constitutional protection authorities assume “an intelligence background”, reports the
Agence France-Presse.
A spokesman for the Bundestag said on Friday in
response
to an
AFP
request
that the security authorities and the Bundestag administration “informed all MPs concerned” about the attack and the corresponding measures
.
According to the “information available so far”, however, “there was no direct attack on the infrastructure of the German Bundestag,” said the parliamentary speaker.
Is the Russian military intelligence behind the cyber attacks?
According to information from the
Spiegel,
security experts suspect the Russian military intelligence service GRU behind the attacks.
In Germany, in addition to MPs, political activists in Hamburg and Bremen were attacked;
the magazine cites government circles in its report.
According to this, security authorities attribute the attack to the group "ghostwriters".
The majority of the attacked members of the Bundestag belong to the governing parties CDU * / CSU and SPD *, as the "Spiegel" reported on.
The group “ghostwriters” was known to IT security experts for disinformation campaigns.
The magazine pointed out that the US security company FireEye reported last year that “ghostwriters” specialized in producing fake news.
The hackers thus gained access to popular news sites or blogs in order to publish fake articles or photos.
The group aligns itself clearly with Russian security interests *, reported the "Spiegel" further from an analysis by FireEye.
German security authorities therefore suspected the Russian secret service GRU to be behind it, according to the magazine.
(dp / dpa / afp) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.