{"id":24074,"date":"2019-01-04T16:11:49","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T16:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packetstormsecurity.com\/news\/view\/29682\/German-Politicians-Targeted-In-Mass-Data-Attack.html"},"modified":"2019-01-04T16:11:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T16:11:49","slug":"german-politicians-targeted-in-mass-data-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/german-politicians-targeted-in-mass-data-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"German Politicians Targeted In Mass Data Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AngelaImage copyright<\/span> Getty\/Reuters<\/span> <\/span>
Image caption<\/span> Angela Merkel, Greens leader Robert Habeck and TV satirist Jan B\u00f6hmermann have all been targeted by the attack <\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hundreds of German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have had personal details stolen and published online.<\/p>\n

Contacts, private chats and financial details were put out on Twitter that belong to figures from every political party except the far-right AfD.<\/p>\n

Data from celebrities and journalists were also leaked.<\/p>\n

It is unclear who was behind the attack, which emerged on Twitter in the style of an advent calendar last month.<\/p>\n

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the authorities were working hard to find the perpetrator. There was, he said in a statement, as yet no evidence that German parliamentary or government systems had been compromised. <\/p>\n

The leak appears to have originated on a Twitter account operated from Hamburg and the authorities in the north German city say they are now working with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to stop the spread of German politicians’ data.<\/p>\n

As Twitter’s European headquarters are located in Dublin<\/a>, the leak falls under the remit of the Irish data protection authority, national broadcaster RTE reports.<\/p>\n

How extensive was the attack?<\/h2>\n

The true extent of damage caused by the leak is not yet known although Justice Minister Katarina Barley said it was a “serious attack”. <\/p>\n

“The people behind this want to damage confidence in our democracy and institutions,” she said. <\/p>\n

A government spokeswoman said no sensitive data from the chancellor’s office had been published. MPs, Euro MPs and MPs from state parliaments were affected, said Martina Fietz. <\/p>\n

She said the government was not yet certain that the data had been stolen by cyber-hackers. Some reports suggested a lone leaker might have had access to sensitive data through their work.<\/p>\n

Although nothing politically explosive is known to have been leaked, the sheer volume of personal data involved suggests the consequences could be considerable, says Michael G\u00f6tschenberg, a reporter for German broadcaster RBB, who researched the attack.<\/p>\n

Image copyright<\/span> Getty Images<\/span> <\/span>
Image caption<\/span> Many of those targeted are MPs in Germany’s Bundestag <\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The now-suspended Twitter account, identified by German media as @_0rbit, was followed by more than 17,000 people.<\/p>\n

Although documents had been posted on the account from 1 December to 28 December, it was not until Thursday evening that officials became aware of the theft.<\/p>\n

Bild newspaper said all the data stolen in the attack dated back to before October 2018 but it was not clear when it began.<\/p>\n