Hackers have reportedly used German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s computer to spread Trojan malware during a recent cyber-attack on the German parliament. The Bundestag’s internal computer network was hacked in May, but the virus may still be active.
Merkel’s computer was one of the first infected by the hackers, German Bild am Sonntag reported on Sunday.
The chancellor’s name was reportedly used to spread the virus to
other computers through a fake invitation to a conference. The
hackers, according to the newspaper, sent emails from the
Chancellor’s account, with a link in the letter activating the
Trojan virus’s installation on recipients' computers.
MPs have been warned not to click on the link. It is said the
so-called Trojan has been found on fifteen computers. In five of
those there is evidence that some data has been captured by the
hackers, Bild am Sonntag reports. Given that the virus may still
be active in the Bundestag, the affected hardware might need to
be replaced.
German domestic intelligence service head, Hans-Georg Maassen,
told a cyber conference in Potsdam on Thursday that the latest
attack may have been carried out by a "foreign intelligence
service." Spiegel Online reported the Russian foreign
intelligence service was allegedly behind the attack.
hoffentlich war der #bundestag#hack nicht von der #NSA direkt ohne #BND hilfe, wäre ja schwierig das zu erklären ;-) pic.twitter.com/9qSKh59adv
— tweetdemagoge fürK21 (@peterpstuttgart) 20 мая 2015
Bundestag President Norbert Lammert, who also heads the Bundestag
Administration, which has around 2,500 members of staff, and the
Bundestag police, told lawmakers that there had been no further
leak of information in the past two weeks. "That does not
mean that the attack has been finally repelled and is
over,"Frankfurter Rundschau has quoted him as saying.
Dirk Engling, spokesman for Europe's largest association of
hackers, Chaos Computer Club (CCC), has said it will be extremely
difficult and tedious to find those behind the attack, with
bureaucracy and conflict of interests within institutions
subordinate to the German Interior Ministry complicating the
search.
The Bundestag administration came under fire on Friday for
delaying notification of the cyber intrusion. Some officials were
reportedly alerted in mid-May, while MPs were kept in the dark
until this week, according to Deutsche Welle.
READ
MORE: US ‘cuts’ spying cooperation with Germany over data
leak
The documents, leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden
in 2013, revealed that American intelligence systematically
tapped Angela Merkel's private mobile phone and eavesdropped on
millions of Germans using a listening post in Bavaria. The
revelation led to the biggest diplomatic scandal between Berlin
and Washington in years.
It's not the first time Bundestag security has been questioned.
Last month, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
reportedly ordered a review of cooperation between the National
Security Agency and the German BND intelligence agency. Several
joint projects have allegedly been canceled.
Citing an unnamed source in US intelligence, the Bild newspaper reported that Clapper was unhappy with Berlin's “inability to contain secret data.” According to the report, the Bundestag committee investigating the recent secret service scandals handed some secret documents to the media. For the US it is “more dangerous than what Snowden did,” Bild quoted the source as saying, referring to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations of global surveillance.