German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other senior politicians were reportedly hit by a data hack, with some of their letters, contact details and party memos leaked on Twitter.
Germany’s digital defense body is “intensively” investigating the apparent data leak that saw data of hundreds of politicians from across the political spectrum being published online, a spokesman for the Federal Office for IT Safety (BSI) said on Friday.
“Hacking attack against politicians: The BSI is currently intensively probing the issue in close cooperation with other federal institutions,” the BSI said on Twitter, adding that “according to what we know so far” the government’s confidential networks were unaffected.
The hack targeted all of Germany’s political parties currently represented in the federal parliament, except for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Politicians at the state level were also affected.
Preliminary review of the documents discovered no sensitive information. However, the data published on Twitter included mobile phone numbers, contact info, and credit card details from members of Germany’s major parties. The leak also included banking and financial details, ID cards and private chats.
Justice Minister Katarina Barley described the incident as a “serious attack.”
“The perpetrators wanted to damage our trust in democracy and our institutions,” she told reporters.
Chancellery data leaked
Among the apparent targets were Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“With regard to the Chancellery it seems that, judging by the initial review, no sensitive information and data have been published and this includes (from) the chancellor,” a government spokeswoman told reporters.
The hackers published Merkel’s fax number, email address and several letters written by and addressed to her, according to the DPA news agency.
Info leak as early as December
The document leak was first discovered Thursday evening, the RBB Inforadio, a Berlin-area German public broadcaster, reported. However, the documents had apparently been posted online as early as December 2018 over a Hamburg-based Twitter account that released them in an Advent-calendar style. The Twitter account describes itself with labels such as security research, artist and satire.
From Deutche Welle
