Emotet: Berlin Superior Court is the victim of a Trojan attack

A cyber attack has paralyzed the Berlin Court of Appeals - at least for a while. This reported the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" ("FAZ") this week, citing an internal letter. According to the newspaper, according to the newspaper, "in the context of emergency management", the Court of Appeal had been "separated from the state network since 27.09.2019 11:35".

The malware used is apparently Emotet, a Trojan that the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) had recently warned German companies about - again.

Emotet is spread through spam e-mails that come along as messages from contacts with whom someone was actually in contact. According to the BSI, the emails contain "either a malicious Office document directly as a file attachment or a link that leads to the download of such a document": Macros contained in the documents would infect the victim systems with the malicious program. Then, Emotet scouts access to e-mail accounts and spreads them using findable addresses.

The perpetrators would do the actual damage but with reloaded malware, the BSI emphasizes: "This is usually first a banking Trojan, which gives the perpetrators complete access to the network, before then manually, for example, a encryption Trojaner is used, which encrypts data, sets whole Networks paralyzed and demands ransom. "

Only accessible by phone, fax and mail

On the website of the Berlin Court of Appeal is also on Friday from a "limited accessibility" the speech. The court was "until further notice only by phone, by fax and by post" contacted. Anyone attempting to reach the court via the online contact form will only be directed to the notice of restrictions. The electronic lawyer mailbox continue to function, it is said.

In his note, the court speaks of a "detected malware", because of the own computer system "was temporarily removed from the network" was: "The IT experts of the court work with intensive support of ITDZ Berlin and the State Secretary for Information and Communication technology under pressure to remedy the problem. "

The ability of the court to work is "guaranteed" according to the communication on the website. The restrictions that still apply to employees on Friday are not apparent from the note. The "FAZ" According to was on Wednesday, no access to the Internet or the intranet possible, as well as access to e-mails and stored data. A spokesman for the court told the newspaper at that time that the attack had affected "individual computers". The SPIEGEL did not reach the speaker on Friday morning.