Germany's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has been targeted in a major cyberattack, the Interior Ministry confirmed, without disclosing the extent and specifics of the breach.
A ministry spokesperson said that the sophistication of the attack suggests involvement of highly skilled actors.
“The nature of the attack points to a very professional actor,” the spokesperson stated. Both the federal IT security agency (BSI) and the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) are engaged in investigating the breach and mitigating its impact.
In response to the attack, the CDU has isolated and taken down parts of its IT infrastructure. The party confirmed that public authorities had launched an investigation into the incident.
The CDU breach follows a similar attack on its centre-left rival, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which occurred last year. The SPD had its email accounts hacked in an incident attributed to a Russian military intelligence unit known as APT28. The attack campaign also targeted defense, IT, and aerospace companies using a previously undisclosed vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to infiltrate email accounts.
The news of Germany's CDU party hack comes after Russia-linked threat actors hacked Polish media to post a fake news report claiming that Prime Minister Donald Tusk was mobilizing 200,000 men to deploy to Ukraine to help fight against Russia troops. Poland’s Digital Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said that the information regarding partial mobilization was false and the authorities have launched an investigation.