What’s going on? 

With relations between Russia and the West arguably at their worst since the Cold War, fears are rising that Germany could soon become the victim of high-scale cyberattacks. 

Such attacks have been known to target elements of critical infrastructure like the energy or water supply, or even attempt to shut down systems in hospitals. In other cases, cybercriminals attempt to interfere with financial markets or pull sensitive data from government departments and agencies. 

“There is currently an increased danger of cyber attacks in Germany in the form of cyber espionage and cyber sabotage,” Baden-Württemberg’s interior minister Thomas Strobl told DPA. “We must increasingly expect wars to be waged in cyberspace and to have an impact on our cyber security.”

One key concern is that, in many cases, Germany is restricted to just one or two suppliers of energy or water per region, which analysts believe is not enough to protect the supply in the event of a cyberattack. 

Another issue is the fact that Germany is currently undergoing a period of relatively rapid digitalisation, leaving more of its infrastructure exposed to such attacks.

“With growing digitalisation, the potential attack surface is also growing, we are also becoming more vulnerable,” said Strobl, adding that computer centres at universities, commercial enterprises and individual citizens are becoming targets. 

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Have there been any recent cyberattacks in Germany?

In today’s highly digitalised landscape, cyberattacks are unfortunately a fact of life and something that most businesses and governments have had to learn to live with. 

However, not all cyberattacks cause an equal amount of disruption or damage, so it’s partially a question of scale.

In February, a cyberattack on an oil company called Oiltanking and Mabanaft affected numerous petrol stations across northern Germany, as well as in the Netherlands and Belgium.

The so-called ‘ransomware’ attack – in which hackers disable systems and then offer to put them back online in return for a ransom – affected the firm’s logistics and loading systems, making it hard for the company to operate as normal. 

However, there was – and still is – no evidence that this was carried out by Russia.

The real fear is that something like the notorious SolarWinds attack in the United States occurs. In 2020, hackers that were believed to be working for Russia managed to silently slip into the network of a piece of management software known as FireEye, and through this single weak point, managed to pull huge swathes of data from companies using that software. 

“In this case, it meant that Russian intelligence had potential access to as many as 18,000 SolarWinds customers,” Wired reporter Lily Hay Newman wrote of the fallout.

“They ultimately broke into fewer than 100 choice networks – including those of Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and the US Justice Department, State Department, and NASA.”

Attacks like these could be devastating in Europe and potentially used to try and mine state secrets. At present, however, there’s no sign that similar attacks have been attempted in Germany.

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Is the government trying to mitigate these risks?

As Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) made clear in a recent speech, a strengthening of cyber capabilities is definitely on the agenda.

Speaking in his emergency address to the Bundestag on Sunday, Scholz revealed plans to strengthen the country against potential cyberattacks and explained that “not all attacks are made against the army”. 

“That is why we need strong cooperation in research and development,” he said. “That is why we will strengthen our resilience – technically and socially – for example against cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns; against attacks on our critical infrastructure and communication channels.”

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has also pledged to expand cyber defence in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We have to think more about countermeasures against cyber attacks,” Faeser told Spiegel on Friday. “It’s a matter of targeted measures to identify perpetrators and crime structures, also abroad, to uncover their concealment measures, behind which they believe they are safe, and to prevent attacks from being carried out”.

What are businesses doing to prepare? 

The Federal Association for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure (BSKI) believes the threat of cyberattacks is increasingly serious and that businesses should make arrangements for this eventuality.

In concrete terms, the association recommends all companies have IT specialists to hand to get services back up and running as well as emergency procedures and backups for the event of a cyberattack.

BSKI member NovaStor has also set up a free hotline where companies can get free advice on cybersecurity measures and assess whether their backups are sufficient.