The Hack

I'll try to keep this brief because I regard it as a page three story in Germany, but it's trending as a BIG topic for several days now.  The news folks, particularly the public TV folks.....think it's really BIG.

Back around mid-December, some of the IT folks who worked for the German government came to realize that they'd been penetrated.....hacked.  It was NOT obvious who did it or how.  Weeks passed.

In mid-January, they came to the next realization....the hack started from a German university in Bruhl....the Federal University of Applied Sciences.  Oddly, they found some portal that existed from the university that led back into various ministry operations.  In public, no one says why the portal existed there.  One might guess that some professors were doing projects and using some portal to ask for information or store presentations.  We might end up finding out that the portal had been around five to ten years.

A malware item was introduced, and it appears.....from ministry to ministry....it got passed around.  So some outsider could review any digital documents they desired.

What country is behind this?  It's not absolutely clear.  Some suggest Russia.  On evidence presented so far....it's awful weak.

Damage? That's the odd thing....they seemed to be browsing....not destroying as you'd typically expect.

The real damage now?  The opposition parties are all hyped up.  Digital war is going on and someone needs to be blamed. 

Could this be some fake effort and just some Brit, America, or Chinese guy? Maybe.  But it's best not to suggest this to the German media....they'd really like to believe it's the Russians.