EU warns Russia over cyberattacks ahead of German elections

The European Union on Friday warned Russia against allowing hackers to attack databases or spread disinformation in some of the 27 member countries just as Germans were preparing to go the polls for weekend parliamentary elections.

“Some EU member states have observed malicious cyber activities, collectively designated as Ghostwriter, and associated these with the Russian state,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

“Such activities are unacceptable as they seek to threaten our integrity and security, democratic values and principles, and the core functioning of our democracies,” Borrell said. “The European Union will revert to this issue in upcoming meetings and consider taking further steps.”

Borrell said the attacks have targeted several members of parliament, government officials, politicians, media workers, and civil society. He did not name the countries concerned.

He said the EU and its member countries “strongly denounce these malicious cyber activities, which all involved must put to an end immediately. We urge the Russian Federation to adhere to the norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace.”

German security officials said Friday that there had been a cyberattack on the Federal Statistical Office, which also oversees Sunday’s election.

Marek Wede, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the attack appeared to have affected a development server used for the national census, rather than election infrastructure.

“As far as we can tell at the moment, the internal election server wasn’t affected by this attack and as such, there is no threat to the conduct of the federal election,” he said.

Earlier this month, Germany protested to Russia over attempts to steal data from lawmakers in what it suspected may have been prepared to spread disinformation before the vote.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin said that the hacker outfit called Ghostwriter had been “combining conventional cyberattacks with disinformation and influence operations,” and that activities targeting Germany have been observed, “for some time.”

They include the use of phishing emails, among other things, to get hold of the personal login details of federal and state lawmakers, with the aim of identity theft.

In July, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence said the agency had seen an uptick in phishing attempts on the private email accounts of federal and state lawmakers and their staff since February. But he said that few attempts were successful, and it appeared little damage had been caused.