A group of unknown hackers has leaked highly-sensitive personal
data from more than 100 German politicians, including German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brandenburg’s prime minister Dietmar
Woidke, along with some German artists, journalists, and YouTube
celebrities.
The leaked data that was published on a Twitter account (@_0rbit) and
dated back to before October 2018 includes phone numbers, email
addresses, private chats, bills, credit card information and photos
of victims’ IDs.
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Although it is yet unclear who perpetrated this mass hack and how
they managed to perform it, the leaked data appears to be collected
unauthorizedly by hacking into their smartphones.
The hack targeted all of Germany’s political parties currently
represented in the federal parliament, including the CDU, CSU, SPD,
FDP, Left party (Die Linke) and Greens, except for the far-right
Alternative for Germany (AfD).
While Justice Minister Katarina Barley called this mass hacking
as a “serious attack,” local media reports that none of the leaked
data could be considered politically explosive.
Germany’s federal office for information security (BSI), who is
investigating the attack, said that government networks were not
affected by the incident and that the identity of the hackers and
their motive were not yet known.
“The BSI is currently intensively examining the case in close
cooperation with other federal authorities. The National Cyber
Defense Center has taken over the central coordination,” a BSI
spokesperson said on Twitter.
“According to the current state of knowledge there is no concern
of the governmental networks. However, we will continue to
investigate.”
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, as well as
Robert Habeck, leader of the Green party, who was particularly
badly affected by the attack with hackers leaking his digital
communications with his family.
Besides German politicians, the intrusive hack attacks also
affected well-known actor Til Schweiger, two renowned German
comedians, Jan Boehmermann and Christian Ehring, as well as dozens
of journalists from ZDF and ARD–public-funded German media
outlets.
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