According to the federal government, Russia is responsible for the cyber attack on the SPD

The federal government blames a unit of the Russian military intelligence service GRU for a cyber attack on the SPD at the beginning of last year. “Russian state hackers have attacked Germany in cyberspace,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday during her visit to Australia in Adelaide and announced the consequences.

The SPD announced in June 2023 that email accounts of the SPD party executive had already been the target of a cyber attack in January. This was made possible by a security gap at the software company Microsoft that was still unknown at the time of the attack, the SPD said at the time – and: “It cannot be ruled out that there was an outflow of data from individual email inboxes.”

Baerbock calls cyberattack “completely unacceptable”

According to Baerbock, the federal government’s investigations under the leadership of the Foreign Office, which in diplomatic language are called “attribution procedures”, have now been completed. “Today we can clearly assign this attack from last year to the APT28 group, which is controlled by the Russian secret service GRU,” said the Green politician when asked at a press conference with her Australian counterpart Penny Wong in Adelaide. “This is completely unacceptable and will not go without consequences.”

Baerbock did not say what consequences that could be. In such cases, it is usual for the ambassador of the responsible country to be summoned to the Foreign Office to officially protest. In similar cases, the European Union has previously imposed sanctions on individuals or entities. Travel bans or the freezing of assets are conceivable.

APT28 became known through the attack on the Bundestag

According to the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the APT28 group has been active worldwide, primarily in the area of ​​cyber espionage, since at least 2004. In the past, it has also led disinformation and propaganda campaigns in cyberspace and is “among the most active and dangerous cyber actors in the world.”

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution clearly attributes APT28 to the Russian military intelligence service GRU. The group, which also goes by the name “Fancy Bear”, was blamed for a major cyber attack on the Bundestag in 2015 and later in the USA for an attack on the Democratic Party before the 2017 presidential election.

Attack on SPD part of a larger campaign

According to dpa information, all German secret services were involved in the federal government’s investigations: the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Federal Intelligence Service and the Military Counterintelligence Service. According to current information, the attack on the SPD is said to have been part of a campaign by APT28 in several European countries, which is directed against government bodies, but also against companies that have to do with energy supply, IT, armaments or aerospace.

The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s most important decision-making body, had already expressed “deep concern” about increasing Russian cyber attacks on Thursday evening – without giving any details. A statement spoke of “hostile activities” directed against Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Great Britain.

“These incidents are part of an intensifying campaign of activities carried out by Russia across the Euro-Atlantic region, including in alliance territory and through proxies. These include acts of sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic disruption, disinformation campaigns and other hybrid operations.” , the statement said. The activities posed “a threat to the security of allies.”