The German Foreign Ministry announced that it has summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian Embassy for clarification – the main official of the Russian embassy – regarding allegations that the Russian military intelligence agency has carried out cyber attacks against the ruling coalition party since last year. Germany.
During a press conference on Friday, federal government spokesman Wolfgang Buchner told reporters that German intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian military intelligence agency GRU is responsible for the 2023 cyber attack on Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). .
In June 2023, the SPD announced that the email accounts of its leaders had been hacked by cybercriminals earlier that year.
Spokesman Buchner said the German government – with the support of the European Union, NATO and “international partners” – strongly condemns the campaign by the Russian state cyber espionage group APT 28, which is part of the GRU intelligence agency.
During a visit to Australia on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock confirmed that the 2023 attacks could be attributed to Russian intelligence and warned that Russia would face consequences.
Although Baerbock did not elaborate on the fallout, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner told reporters in Berlin that Germany would “use the full spectrum of measures” to respond to Russia’s attacks, including diplomatic measures and sanctions.
Last month, Germany’s cyber security agency, in cooperation with Google’s Alphabet, determined that a similar Russian-controlled group called APT29 was operating while attacking several German political parties in order to infiltrate the their network and steal data.
NATO and the European Union issued separate statements on Thursday and Friday to express concern and condemn Russia’s malicious cyber campaign not only against Germany, but also against Britain, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.
The NATO statement emphasized that the attacks included cyber and electronic intrusions, disinformation campaigns and other hybrid operations. According to the EU statement, the cyber campaign targeted “democratic institutions, government institutions and infrastructure services in the European Union and beyond.”
