BERLIN \u2014 Germany’s foreign intelligence chief is warning of cyberattacks aimed at political destabilization as the country prepares for an election next year and says evidence suggests Russian involvement in hacking during the U.S. campaign.
He said it’s technically difficult to assign blame to any “state actor” \u2014 but that “some things speak for it being at least tolerated or wished for on the part of the state.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The perpetrators have an interest in delegitimizing the democratic process as such \u2014 whomever that later helps,” Kahl was quoted as saying. “I have the impression that the outcome of the American election isn’t causing mourning in Russia so far.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traces left on the internet suggest that those responsible wanted to demonstrate what they can do, “and not just in the U.S. elections,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany’s election is expected next September, and votes in the Netherlands and France are scheduled earlier in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Kahl, whose agency is best known by its German acronym BND, said that Germany isn’t alone on the list of target countries. And he added: “It could be that the increasing transparency on these matters will lead to a rethink.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is right to address this kind of thing openly,” he said. “A kind of pressure is being exerted on public discourse and democracy that is not acceptable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His comments follow a large internet outage that affected almost a million customers of German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom starting Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security said the outage was part of a worldwide attack on internet routers that exploited unsecured maintenance ports. The government’s secure communications network was also targeted, but protective measures prevented it from being affected, the agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked whether the outage resulted from a Russian attack, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he didn’t want to speculate on the origin. “At the moment, who exactly the initiator was is not certain,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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