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In the spring of 2015, hackers broke into the IT system of the German Bundestag and stole vast amounts of data, including many emails from parliamentarians in the German National Assembly.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office is said to have been one of the targets of the attack.
Angela Merkel said in May this year that Germany has proof that Russian authorities were behind the cyber attack in 2015.
– Clear similarities
Bjørn Svenungsen is a researcher and director of the cyber program in the Department of Defense Studies at Norwegian Defense College.
– This time there is also a robbery in a national assembly. In both cases, those who have done so have an obvious interest in accessing the information of the elected representatives. This can be information that can be used for many years to come, says Svenungsen.
He believes the biggest similarity is that the Norwegian and German authorities clearly point to Russia. Experts call it “name and shame.”
– It’s new. Norway has not made this so clear before, singling out one state and accusing it of cyber attacks.
– Why is it so clear now?
– That is clearly since. In recent years, we have seen an increase in these types of attacks. Some Western countries seem to have come to a kind of understanding that it is better to go out and say than not. In the past, people have waited and been restricted, because technically it is very difficult to prove who is behind it. But I suppose Norway here has a strong series of clues that make Russia stand out, says Svenungsen.
NRK
Explain
Why is email so interesting to hackers?
for answers
Email is in many ways the key to our digital life. There you will often find conversations dating back several years in time and confidential documents.
By accessing an email account, you can also access other online services. You can indicate on a website that you have forgotten your password. Then there will be a link to the email account and you will have access to the website.
How do hackers access someone’s email?
It is quite common for people to use the same password in multiple places. Simple passwords a hacker can guess. Many also have passwords that deviate from previous data breaches, something hackers diligently use in new attacks.
Are emails from ordinary people vulnerable?
In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to target companies and organizations with so-called ransomware viruses. These viruses shut down all the computers they access. Many of these attacks start with a seemingly innocent email sent to one or more company employees.
It is also common for criminals to attack the private email accounts of people with an important role in a company. These hackers often have financial motives for the attack.
When private accounts are attacked, it is because the owner is somehow interesting to the attacker.
How can I protect myself from being hacked?
The most important thing you can do is get a double factor on the email account you have at work and in private. With two factors, you get a unique and temporary code via text message or in an app. This makes it much more difficult for an attacker: now they need to know both your password and the unique code to enter.
Experts also recommend that you get a so-called password manager. It is a program that stores all your passwords in one place. In this way, you can have different passwords on all web pages, at the same time that you just I need to remember a password.
Read more about the case here:
Fancy bear
German security authorities said the Russian military intelligence organization GRU was behind the cyber attack. The hacking attack is said to have been carried out by the well-known APT28 hacker group, better known as Fancy Bear. This group must be a unit subject to GRU.
According to various media outlets, the German authorities have managed for the first time to identify a suspect who will be involved in the attack, a 29-year-old hacker who will also be an official at GRU.
The GRU is also said to have been behind the attack on the data breach on Democrats’ data servers in the United States prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. has also been searching for the same GRU official .
In May this year, the German prosecutor’s office issued an arrest warrant for the Russian agent.
Very demanding judgment
Svenungsen believes that it will be very demanding for Norway to issue a possible indictment against a specific person.
– Many years passed since this happened until Germany brought charges against a person, as responsible for the theft. It is very rare for people to be prosecuted in this way. The United States has done this with Chinese and Russian citizens, but it is very rare in Europe, says Svenungsen.
Russia has rejected the German accusations as unfounded. Russia has done the same against the Norwegian accusations.
