Espionage
Berlin in the visor of Russian secret services
Behind the hacker attacks on the computers of the German Bundestag is supposed to be a Russian secret service stuck. There are a number of Clues that the Kremlstrategen Germany.
Hundreds Russlanddeutsch protest in Villingen-Schwenningen against the refugee policy of the Federal government
It is only a half of the sentence, with the news magazine der Spiegel of a “senior security official” was quoted. He confirmed the attacks on the servers and computers of the Bundestag in the last year were “clearly a military Russian news service associate”.
As so often in Geheimdienstangelegenheiten there is no official confirmation for this Thesis. The Bundestagsverwaltung informs that she had “no investigating Agency and could, therefore nothing to have the background to say”.
The Federal office for security in information technology would like to no opinion. You care for the technical aspects of IT security, not to the origin of the attacks, says a spokesman. The Generalbundesanwaltschaft declined to comment.
“Fits in the Hybrid strategy”
Surprisingly, the message is not. In may 2015 were technicians of the Bundestagsverwaltung attention to the fact that some hosts of the Bundestag is infected with malware. In August had the entire network to be shut down, meanwhile the Hacker, the System is so far infected that the engineers expected, only a complete reboot could overcome the problems.
What data is in what quantity to be removed were white, apparently, until today, no one exactly. The suspicion that the attacks are not of Hobbyhackern came, but probably from a foreign secret service was coordinated, but was early in the room.
Hans-Georg Maaßen, President of the Verfassungsschutzes, the for counter-intelligence is responsible, as expressed already in September, an appropriate “fear”. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, confirmed the conjecture in September 2015 at a meeting of experts in computer security. Analysts of the Computersicherheitsfirma Kaspersky Lab had also found evidence that the malware on computers with Russian language settings prorgrammiert had been.
“Hybrid Strategy”
If now confirmed, that the Russian services behind the attacks stuck, does this in the picture, that of Germany more strongly into the focus of the Russian secret services moved. “It fits into the Russian hybrid strategy”, says Roderich Kiesewetter, Außenpolitikexperte of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
The term “hybrid warfare” has been in the train of the Ukraine crisis dominated. There put Russia’s interests through the use of a mixture of military means, covert support for armed groups, and media campaigns for the Russian-speaking residents. The European States moved into the sights of the Russian strategists. There is an “obvious interest of Russia because the European Union is destabilizing”, fears Cem Özdemir, Chairman of the opposition Greens.
A Hacker-attack, the Russian intelligence services is attributed to, put the IT System of the German Bundestag lame
For a long time now, Russia is not only with Geheimdiensttätigkeiten, but also with propaganda campaigns, active in Germany. With own media tries to Moscow, his view of things to spread. But also controlled comments in social media and in the Kommentarforen of Nachrichtenwebseiten belong to this strategy. It also maintains Moscow relations to right-wing and extreme right-wing parties.
Propaganda battle in order to “our girl”
In the past few weeks is now a further Dimension has been added. Russian state media have the refugee crisis in Germany
much space is granted
– least of all by reporting about the alleged rape of a russischstämmigen 13-year-old girl by several Arab men. Although the police early on announced that the alleged rape
not taken place
have reported Russian media extensively about it and threw the German authorities, the allegations of cover up.
Already for some years, draw the Russian media an image of Europe as a verweichlichtem, in decline, with the continent. What is new is that the reporting is also a part of the russischstämmigen Germans to mobilize.
So organiserte a group called “International Convention of the Russian-Germans” demonstrations against the refugee policy of Angela Merkel’s in different cities, even the far-right NPD participated in the protests. In Berlin and several other cities went a week ago, several hundred people on the street.