Russia attacks German company: "If one of us is attacked, it affects us all"

FR Russia attacks German company: "If one of us is attacked, it affects us all" Article by Lars-Eric Nievelstein • 1 hour • 3 minutes reading time Attacks are increasing dramatically Cyber ​​attacks are increasing in Germany. There are thousands of attacks every day. A large proportion of them come from Russia. Neckarsulm - What do the Port of Hamburg, the Schwarz Group from Neckarsulm and the CDU have in common? They all know what it's like to be targeted by Russian hackers. The number of cyber attacks in Germany has been increasing dramatically for several years. Often it is foreign actors who want to steal either money or critical data. The example of the Schwarz Group shows how entrenched the problem has become in Germany. Cyber ​​attacks on the Schwarz Group have multiplied - "350,000 times a day" The Schwarz Group, parent company of the food retailers Lidl and Kaufland, among others, is under fire from the Internet. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war in Ukraine, the number of cyberattacks has increased a hundredfold - from 3,500 attacks per day to 350,000 per day. "Now we are attacked 350,000 times a day, mainly from Russia," explained CEO Gerd Chrzanowski to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Together with the AI ​​specialist ServiceNow from the USA, the group is now working on security solutions based on artificial intelligence. The Schwarz Group also wants to make these solutions available to the competition. "We compete in eggs, bananas and milk. But not in cybersecurity. Here we have to work together," explained the Schwarz boss. "If one of us is attacked, it affects us all." Chrzanowski also warned against storing critical data on servers abroad. Cyberattacks are increasing dramatically - Bitkom warns of China and Russia The damage caused by cyberattacks - especially from abroad - has already alarmed the Federal Criminal Police Office and industry associations to a high degree. "Cybercrime offenses remain at a high level in Germany," the BKA explained in the Federal Cybercrime Report 2023 published in the summer. The trend shows that cyberattacks from within Germany are decreasing slightly, while those from abroad are increasing almost extremely. In 2023, the number of so-called foreign crimes rose by 28 percent. The financial damage caused by cyberattacks to the German economy in 2023 amounted to around 148 billion euros. In making this figure, the BKA referred to data from the industry association Bitkom. In August 2024, the association announced that 81 percent of all German companies had been victims of data theft, digital and analog industrial espionage and sabotage between August 2024 and the same month last year. A year earlier, this figure had been 72 percent. Foreign secret services play a dangerous role in this. At 20 percent, their share of all cyberattacks was significantly higher than a year earlier (seven percent). The most important "starting point for attacks on the German economy" is China, reported Bitkom. 45 percent of the companies affected are said to have traced at least one attack back to China. Russia is just behind with a share of 39 percent. Cybercrime as a business model - billions are at stake According to the federal government, these three crimes are particularly popular forms of cyberattack: Ransomware: Here attackers gain access to foreign systems, encrypt them either completely or partially and demand a ransom before releasing them again. Phishing: Derived from the English word fishing, which means fishing. Attackers send deceptively real-looking emails, SMS or even links to elaborately fake websites that are intended to entice the victim to enter their data. DDoS attacks: Abbreviation for "Distributed Denial of Service". The aim here is to overload a system or server through targeted mass calls. The main problem is that many cybercrimes have now developed into a kind of business model. Anyone who is willing can "buy" them on the digital black market.