14 DAY TRIAL // Fears about Russian involvement in European elections, especially after last year's US election, aren't exactly unfounded or born out of paranoia. In fact, Germany says it fended off two cyber attacks coming from the same cybercriminals that targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Arne Schoenbohm, a top German official, told Reuters they managed to fight off two attacks from APT28, also known as "Fancy Bear," the Russian hacker group that experts believe to have been behind the Hillary hack.
The first, it seems, took place in May, when the hackers attempted to create an Internet domain for Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party in the Baltic region, Schoenbohm said.
The second attack took place several months later and involved a spear-phishing scheme targeting German parties in the lower house of parliament. The attack apparently used a NATO domain name as it tried to inject malicious software.
"Germany remains in danger in the cyber arena since we are highly digitized. The more we digitize, the more dependent we become on networks, the greater the risk of attack," Schoenbohm said, painting a rather realistic picture of the troubles we face today.
Prevention is best
According to Schoenbohm, his agency is doing everything it can to strengthen Germany's defenses against hackers by monitoring government networks and educating politicians and parties on how to protect their own networks. "We give them advice and help them with certain measures. But in the end, what each party does is its own responsibility," he said.
Following the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in the United States and the dumping of confidential emails, US intelligence agencies have pointed the finger east, toward Russia. According to them, it is state-paid actors that are to blame for the hack. US agencies have warned European allies that Russia may attempt similar moves, especially as 2017 marks the year with several important presidential elections.