German Foreign Minister annalena Baerbock has vowed that Russia will face consequences for a cyber attack believed to be orchestrated by a group linked to Russian military intelligence.
Berbock made this declaration during a press conference in Adelaide, as reported by Reuters.
In January 2023, Berlin reported that Russian cyber activists had targeted several German websites.
This digital onslaught was a reaction to Germany's decision to dispatch Leopard tanks to Ukraine, escalating the cyber warfare between the nations.
"We can now clearly attribute last year's attack to the Russian APT28 group, which is controlled by Russian military intelligence," Berbock stated.
"In other words, Russian state hackers attacked Germany in cyberspace. This is absolutely unacceptable and will not remain without consequences," she added.
In March, Germany's cybersecurity agency, along with researchers from Google’s parent company Alphabet, identified another group, APT29. This group was implicated in cyber-attacks against several German political parties, attempting to infiltrate their networks and extract sensitive data.
The backdrop to these cyber-attacks is steeped in geopolitical tensions, sparked in part by Germany's significant military support to Ukraine. On January 25, 2023, the German government officially announced its decision to supply Leopard main battle tanks to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and approved the re-export of these tanks to other countries.
The head of the German Federal Office for Information Security recently acknowledged the country's underpreparedness for a potential large-scale cyber attack.
