• Merkel ally cites thousands of cyber attacks from Russian IP addresses
    11 replies, posted
[QUOTE]BERLIN (Reuters) - A top leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party said her website had been hit by thousands of cyber attacks -- many from Russian IP addresses -- before Sunday’s televised election debate. German intelligence and government officials have often voiced concerns that Moscow could seek to interfere in the Sept. 24 national election, in which Merkel is widely expected to win a fourth term. Russia has repeatedly denied trying to influence foreign elections. Julia Kloeckner, vice chairman of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said on Monday that her political website had seen some 3,000 attacks on Sunday before the debate between Merkel and Social Democratic leader Martin Schulz. Following a pattern seen in earlier hacks, the CDU’s headquarters in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where Kloeckner is the party’s leader, also experienced “massive attacks” ahead of the debate, she said. “Many of the senders have Russian IP addresses,” Kloeckner added. German authorities have blamed a spate of cyber attacks directed at the German parliament, individual lawmakers, political parties and political think-tanks since summer 2015 on APT 28, a Russian hacker group with links to Moscow. Kloeckner did not say how the attacks had been discovered or what form they had taken. Many recent cyber attacks targeted at German politicians and institutions have used phishing schemes that include attachments with malicious software. Germany’s BSI federal cyber protection agency said it was aware of the incidents and was in touch with the CDU headquarters in the state, a spokesman said. Officials with the headquarters of the CDU and the Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition, said they had not seen a wave of similar attacks on their websites. Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency, told reporters in July that Berlin expected Russia to try to influence this month’s election and said he suspected that Russian President Vladimir Putin would prefer a different German chancellor than Merkel. Merkel backs continued sanctions against Russia for its actions toward Ukraine. Relations between Germany and Russia have been cool in recent years, although Germany is highly dependent on energy supplies from Russia. A spokesman for the German interior ministry told a news conference on Monday that cyber attacks directed at political parties had increased generally in recent months, but declined to comment on the latest incidents.[/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-cyber/merkel-ally-cites-thousands-of-cyber-attacks-from-russian-ip-addresses-idUSKCN1BF1FA"]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-election-cyber/merkel-ally-cites-thousands-of-cyber-attacks-from-russian-ip-addresses-idUSKCN1BF1FA[/URL]
My, I wonder what Russia could be hoping to gain from this.
Yet again a case of why Russia is a threat to international democracy
[QUOTE=chemo;52650975]Yet again a case of why Russia is a threat to international democracy[/QUOTE] russia: a country that can only get ahead by kneecapping other democracies with hacking, lying, and astroturfing, home to the greatest hives of cybercriminals, and the singularly most hated country in terms of online videogaming. edit: also one of the few countries that can claim they effectively de-legalized homosexuality without being a theocracy, and also one of few in this modern age to annex their neighbors.
gonna vote for anyone russia doesn't like
Out of curiosity, what political parties in Germany [I]does[/I] Russia like? Barring the usual lunatics that'd wreck the country quite effectively if they got into power e.g. the communist party (presuming there's one there, there's one everywhere usually)
[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;52654415]Out of curiosity, what political parties in Germany [I]does[/I] Russia like? Barring the usual lunatics that'd wreck the country quite effectively if they got into power e.g. the communist party (presuming there's one there, there's one everywhere usually)[/QUOTE] I would assume any euroskeptic/anti-EU party would work for them.
[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;52654415]Out of curiosity, what political parties in Germany [I]does[/I] Russia like? Barring the usual lunatics that'd wreck the country quite effectively if they got into power e.g. the communist party (presuming there's one there, there's one everywhere usually)[/QUOTE] [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany"]Alternative for Germany[/URL], most likely, considering it allies itself with National Front in France and the Freedom Party of Austria, both of which Russia has attempted to support in the past.
[QUOTE=Dave_Parker;52654722]Not a big surprise really. A lot of cyber attacks come from Russia & China because there's a lot of (botnet slave) computers there and the ISPs tend to not give a shit as long as they're not harming service for other users.[/QUOTE] It also helps that these countries have active state policies of perpetrating cyber attacks against other countries
[QUOTE=.Isak.;52654705][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany"]Alternative for Germany[/URL], most likely, considering it allies itself with National Front in France and the Freedom Party of Austria, both of which Russia has attempted to support in the past.[/QUOTE] you're right on the money
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