Unknown hackers have released personal information of hundreds of German politicians at various levels, as well as internal documents and five of the six members of the Bundestag parties. From cyber attacks are not affected only the members of the “Alternative for Germany”. The leak occurred at the end of December, and the authorities claim that were aware of individual cases of hacking, which has touched about a thousand people. It is unknown who is behind the cyber attack, and the primary analysis of published information showed that it does not contain politically sensitive documents, mostly personal information. The competent authorities are investigating the circumstances of mass data breaches, checking including and the version of foreign intervention. Meanwhile, experts suggest that the target — to discredit the current government in the eyes of ordinary Germans.

  • AFP
  • © Odd ANDERSEN

Unknown hackers have published online the personal data and intra-party documents hundreds of German politicians and other public figures. Drain occurred at the end of December, but information about the incident began to spread late in the evening of 3 January after the message the radio station rbb Inforadio.

A series of publications has targeted members of the five parties included in the current composition of the Bundestag (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, the “Left” and “Green”). The data packets have been successively made public from 20 to 24 December. The only party of the German Parliament, whose members have not suffered from cyber attacks, was “Alternative for Germany” (ADH).

Hackers have published the home addresses, mobile phone numbers, email addresses, and photocopies of passports, information on credit cards, personal correspondence and inner-party documents politicians.

At the moment it is unknown who was behind the hacking of data. Links to publications distributed through the Twitter account @_0rbit (currently it is locked, but previously as the location in the profile was set Hamburg). As the data are more or less media personalities from Germany were published on this Twitter page from the summer of 2017.

Information was also available in a number of accounts of the user @dennis567 on platforms Steemit, video d.tube and file exchange. Moreover, on the account @dennis567 as a profile image is a photograph software Hitachi Garcia, who, according to open sources, works in the company — developer of open frameworks Kong Inc. with headquarters in San Francisco.

  • Profile Hitachi Garcia on Facebook and one of the accounts, which were laid out the leak

The primary analysis of published data showed that there was no politically sensitive documents. In addition, the German journalists say that the heterogeneity of the collected information (from public to confidential), as well as its spacing in time (some documents a few years) indirectly indicate that the data has been gathered from various sources, and not from a single database.

The German authorities have started investigation into the massive leak. The Federal office for information security announced that the Agency is actively investigating a hacking attack, in close cooperation with other competent bodies. It is noted that the work involved specialists of the National centre of cyber security.

Hackerangriff auf Politiker: Das BSI prüft den derzeit Fall in enger Abstimmung mit weiteren Bundesbehörden intensiv. Das Nationale Cyber-Abwehrzentrum hat die zentrale Koordination übernommen. Nach jetzigem Erkenntnisstand liegt keine der Betroffenheit Regierungsnetze vor.

— BSI (@BSI_Presse) January 4, 2019.

“As of this moment there is no information about what was affected by the government network”, — reported in management.

The head of Department Arne Shenbaum said that, according to the received rating, just leak covers about a thousand people, but the hacked accounts were no more than a hundred of them. He noted that the authorities were aware of a separate incident in December, and in most cases, dissemination of information is limited or already publicly available.

According to the Deputy official representative of the government of Germany Martina Fitz, the authorities seriously consider the cyber attack on German politicians and find out “the extent and causes” of these leaks.

“Personal information and documents of hundreds of politicians and public figures had been circulated on the Internet. In particular, we are talking about policies… at all levels — the European Parliament, the Bundestag, the diet, even policies at the municipal level. The Federal government very seriously to consider these cases,” said Fitz.

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She added that, while according to available information, the hacker attack did not affect any sensitive government information or personal data of the Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. Previously, the tabloid Bild, citing sources reported that the leak affected the members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Germany, including Merkel.

Fitz noted that until the investigation is completed, it is impossible to give a definitive assessment of what happened, but at the moment there is no information about the authenticity of published data and information about who could provoke leakage. In turn, the official representative of the Ministry of defense of Germany Jens Flosdorff in the briefing said that the incident, according to preliminary data, has not affected the German Armed forces.

The representative of the Ministry of internal Affairs of Germany Soren Schmidt, answering a reporter’s question, said that at the moment, the office checks, could the attack to be foreign intelligence services.

“It is a matter of verification,” said Schmidt.

Thus, according to Bild, Germany asked for help in the investigation to the U.S. national security Agency (NSA).

  • A screenshot of the page of one of the German-speaking portals, which, in particular, was published stolen by hackers content

“Germany — the main object of this stuffing”

According to the head of the Center for German studies Institute of Europe Vladislav Belov, at this stage it is unclear who and why committed the burglary and has published the personal details of politicians. In particular, it is possible that it could do some hacker-lover — just to test or show off their skills.

“Why the leak was not related to the “Alternative for Germany”? To provoke a discussion, which lead the media. This case is those who were hacked. It is difficult to predict why it was done and who. You can search for neo-Nazi trail, it is similarly possible to assume that someone did it on purpose to create suspicion against the “Alternatives”. Versions can be as much as necessary”, — said Belov in conversation with RT.

The German political scientist Alexander Rahr said that at this stage of the investigation all the tracks are in Germany itself, because if we were talking about a possible foreign intervention, it would “shouted vengeance”.

“There is an internal trial, the situation is really serious. This is a huge failure of the German structures that are supposed to protect such information,” — said the expert.

“Why foreign hackers to publish such information on public sites? They would be taken away and used for their own purposes. To publish everything in the open — not very logical,” — said Rahr.

The interlocutor of RT also did not rule out that the cyber attack can be a anti-globalization who are fighting with the political elites can attempt to uncover a possible fraud. However, all this will become clear in the course of the investigation, which, I’m sure the analyst will be transparent.

In turn, head of the Department of social and political studies of the Institute of Europe RAS Vladimir Schweitzer noted that these data breaches can be a kind of pressure on Angela Merkel.

“Maybe someone wanted to make it so that once again the Germans thought that the government is not in very good hands. How to prevent stolen personal information to posted on the Internet?.. All these things work against the modern political system of Germany. Germany, of course, is the main object of this kind of stuffing,” said Schweitzer.