A cybercriminal group known as Rhysida allegedly broke into the network of Berlin’s state government and exfiltrated 1.44 million files. They then tried to extort the government entity for money and when that failed, they leaked it all into the dark web.
According to multiple sources, the group first claimed responsibility for the attack on an underground forum, where it shared a small sample of the stolen files and demanded Berlin pay 30 bitcoin (around $2.3 million) in exchange for deleting the files.
Berlin recognized the attack in a press release, and said it would not be negotiating with the attackers, and instead launched a full-scale investigation into the incident, which it described as an “extremely serious crime and an attack on the state of Berlin.”
Read more…
Source: TechRadar News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Germany and the Netherlands to build the first ever joint military internet
June 28, 2019
Government officials from Germany and the Netherlands have signed an agreement this week to build the first-ever joint military internet. The accord was signed on Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, where NATO defense ministers met this week. The name of this new Dutch-German military internet is the Tactical Edge Networking, or TEN, for short. This is the first time ...
- German States Approve Criminal Law Targeting Dark Web Infrastructure
March 18, 2019
Germany’s federal states have voted in favour of a measure to extend criminal sanctions against those providing infrastructure to so-called “dark web” sites used for illegal purposes, such as selling firearms, drugs or illegal content. The measure, which critics have called overly broad, is the latest sign of a crackdown in Europe and elsewhere on the internet’s perceived ...
- Germany sees big rise in security problems affecting infrastructure
February 17, 2019
Germany has experienced a big increase in the number of security incidents hitting critical infrastructure such as power grids and water suppliers, the BSI cybersecurity agency said on Sunday, adding however that they were not all due to hacking. The Welt am Sonntag weekly had reported on Sunday that Germany had learned of 157 hacker attacks ...
- Users of illegal websites targeted in joint law-enforcement activity
January 29, 2019
The National Crime Agency, working with law enforcement partners from 14 countries, has taken action against a number of cyber criminals website users linked to four million attacks across the globe. This latest action is part of Operation Power Off, which pursues those individuals and services responsible for committing or facilitating DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) ...
- Angela Merkel’s personal details leaked on Twitter
January 4, 2019
An unknown hacker has released confidential data linked to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of the country’s other politicians. The stolen details were released on Twitter over the past few weeks in a sort of Advent Calendar and included bills and credit card information, phone numbers, email addresses, photo identification and personal chat histories. The Twitter ...
- Germany proposes router security guidelines
November 26, 2018
The German government published at the start of the month an initial draft for rules on securing Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) routers. Published by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the rules have been put together with input from router vendors, German telecoms, and the German hardware community. Once approved, router manufacturers don’t ...