Swiss Air Force data exposed in hacker attack on US firm

Documents from the Swiss Air Force, among others, have been exposed in a hacker attack on US security company Ultra Intelligence & Communications.

Published: 6 January 2024 18:55 CET

Code on a computer. Swiss Air Force documents been subject to a data breach on a US security firm. Photo by Jake Walker on Unsplash

In total, around 30 gigabytes of data, including classified documents, were stolen and have now appeared on the dark web, where anyone can access them.

The hacked US company also supplies the Swiss Department of Defence (DDPS) and Swiss aerospace engineering and defence industry business Ruag with encryption and communication technology.

The documents that have surfaced on the dark web include a contract between the DDPS and the US company for almost five million dollars.

The contract is said to relate to the purchase of encrypted communications technology for the Swiss Air Force.

The name ‘Ruag’ also appeared in the leaked documents, which seem to relate to technologies it has been acquiring from the US company since 2017.

The VBS confirmed the hacker attack to Swiss public TV SRF Investigativ.

“Ultra Intelligence & Communications informed Armasuisse and the Defence Group of the ransomware attack,” they said, adding that further investigations were underway.

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Two victims suffered serious wounds, police said. The attacker was also in hospital being treated for injuries that investigators said were self-inflicted.

The man was “believed to be of foreign origin” and was aged about 40, police said in a statement which added that he was thought to have acted alone.

All of the injured remained hospitalised late Wednesday.

Armed with “sharpened or pointed” metal weapons, the man first lashed out at a passer-by at the railway station in the town of 12,000 people in the Aargau canton, about 60 kilometres (38 miles) west of Zurich, police said.

He then wounded several people seemingly at random before entering a house, police added.

Among those attacked were two teachers from the Zofingen cantonal school, the institution’s director, Patrick Strossler, told 20minuten.ch news website.

The Aargauer Zeitung newspaper quoted one man as saying his pregnant wife had been among those attacked. She was cut in the face but her life was not threatened.

After two hours of negotiations with a specialised team, the man was arrested in the house, police said. The suspect had injured himself and was taken to hospital, said Bernhard Graser, a police spokesman.

Graser told the Zofinger Tagblatt newspaper that the attacker’s injuries were self-inflicted.

Police have called for witnesses to share video or photos that may be useful for their investigation.

Images shown by Aargauer Zeitung showed a large deployment of police and emergency vehicles. The security forces had assault rifles and bullet-proof vests.

A police helicopter landed on a nearby sports field, causing the local youth football team to cut short a training session, the newspaper said.