The German army's fleet was grounded. Cyber attack on a drone manufacturer

The perpetrators broke into the manufacturer's corporate networks and smuggled a program to internal servers that pretended to be a legal update of the QBase mission software. It serves, among others, for planning flights of the Vector reconnaissance drone, used for years by Ukraine and also purchased by the Bundeswehr, where it is called "Sokół" ("Falke").

The malicious update was distributed, not directly to the drones, but to the servers of the Bundeswehr and other clients. There, it caught the attention of inspectors who detected the presence of an unscheduled update.

As "Der Spiegel" reported, as a result, the Bundeswehr temporarily grounded the manufacturer's entire fleet of products.

The services are explaining who is behind the attack

The spokesman for Quantum Systems, quoted by the weekly, confirmed that the incident was detected at the end of October 2026, and the first analyzes showed "an active cyber attack by hostile actors."

The threat was quickly brought under control in cooperation with the German services. The drone manufacturer said that the operation of its unmanned systems does not pose a risk to end users and operators, and the fleet is ready for operation.

It has not yet been determined who is behind the attack. For months, German services have been warning arms companies against sabotage and hybrid attacks, which also include cyberattacks.

Updates are a means used by cybercriminals

Attacks via manipulated updates have caused serious damage in the past. In 2017, an alleged update to Ukrainian accounting software infected computers in at least 65 countries for which Russia's GRU military intelligence service was said to be responsible.

Quantum Systems is a contract partner of the Bundeswehr in the field of several unmanned systems. For years, the company has also been supplying its products to Ukraine, where it runs its own production plants. It also entered into several joint ventures with Ukrainian producers. The incident was first reported by the British newspaper Financial Times.