Data leak after cyber attack on Berlin Senate administrations: Hackers publish sensitive information

Investigative journalist Lars Winkelsdorf calls the fact that the data has now been published “an absolute catastrophe”. He writes on

The cyber attack became known on August 14th. The Senate departments for mobility, transport, climate protection and the environment as well as those for urban development, construction and housing were affected. The professional hackers apparently had unnoticed access to the internal computer systems for several days, from August 7th to 12th. Initially, the Senate claimed that only publicly accessible data had been leaked.

There is also confidential information about disciplinary proceedings

It had been known for a week that hackers were blackmailing the state of Berlin and threatening to publish the stolen data unless a large sum of money was paid. The stolen data was offered for sale on their dark web site. Amount required: 30 Bitcoins, which is around two million euros at the current rate. Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) declared that the state of Berlin would not allow itself to be blackmailed. The hackers' deadline expired on Friday afternoon.

The data that has now been published comes from all possible departments of the affected Senate administrations. These include departmental documents, documents on political processes and internal administrative matters. From the human resources area, the documents include certificates or scanned ID cards. The hackers also published confidential documents on disciplinary proceedings, titled “Confidential Personnel Matter!”

Similar to this case, Rhysida has attacked organizations and companies dozens of times in recent years, stealing data and either getting paid for it or publishing it on the dark web. The USA was often affected, but sensitive data from a property management company in Stuttgart has already been published, albeit to a much lesser extent than in Berlin.

The Berlin administration wants to inform people who appear in the leaked data, depending on their risk assessment. It is said that those affected are called upon to file a criminal complaint with the police. It is currently assumed that the “Berlin State Network”, i.e. the authorities’ computer network, is no longer infiltrated.