“Incidents known”: Series of hacker attacks also hit German pharmaceutical dealers

Cyber ​​attacks on supermarkets and a blood donation service are causing a stir across Europe. Germany was also hit by this: The BSI confirms a report that a pharmaceutical dealer has been caught in this country.

After a cyber attack on the cooling system of the blood donation service in France became known, there is also a case in the health sector in Germany, according to a media report. As the research network "Correctiv" reported, citing information from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), a local pharmaceutical dealer was affected by an attack. The systems for cooling medication were therefore attacked.

“The BSI is aware of individual incidents in supermarkets and in the pharmaceutical industry,” the research network quoted a spokesman for the authority as saying. However, the BSI assumes that the attacks are “untargeted and opportunistic”. “The attackers look for vulnerable instances and exploit them, if in doubt even without knowing which company or industry they are hitting,” says the Federal Office’s response.

"Correctiv" also reported that pro-Russian channels on the Telegram online service had attributed the recent attacks to hacker groups from Russia. The BSI therefore announced that it was aware of relevant posts. However, there is no evidence to support these attributions. It cannot therefore be ruled out that “free riders will claim these attacks without evidence,” Correctiv quoted the BSI spokesman as saying.

There have recently been a series of attacks on the control units of cooling systems in numerous European countries. In France, the blood donation service confirmed a cyber attack on three systems belonging to a service provider on Wednesday. However, the attack was discovered in time and the security of the products was not affected.