spiegel.de<\/a>.<\/p>\nBefore releasing the data, the attackers launched a countdown on their leak site and demanded a ransom of 30 bitcoins, worth approximately two million euros. The ultimatum expired on Friday at around 3:35 p.m. The Berlin Senate had stated in advance that it would not agree to the cybercriminals\u2019 terms as a matter of principle.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the countdown ended, the hackers released a data package of around 5.8 terabytes. According to available estimates, it contains more than 1.4 million data items. Members of the group had already circulated lists of file names online.<\/p>\n
What Is Known About the Cyberattack on the Berlin Administration<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s Federal Office for Information Security believes that the attack was carried out by cybercriminals motivated solely by financial gain. The agency has so far found no links between the attackers and state entities or politically motivated groups.<\/p>\n
Following the incident, the agency issued a security warning to other organizations. It described a sophisticated, multi-stage intrusion method. Microsoft had previously documented this type of attack and named it TerminalFix.<\/p>\n
What Data the Rhysida Hackers May Have Released<\/p>\n
According to the attackers, the stolen data includes information on nearly 80,000 administrative offense proceedings.<\/p>\n
The hackers also claimed to have obtained more than 46,500 contracts, information on critical infrastructure facilities, court records, and emergency response plans.<\/p>\n
The released materials may also include passwords and nearly 6,000 files containing account login credentials.<\/p>\n
Why the Berlin Senate Refused to Pay the Ransom<\/p>\n
Bianca Kastl of the Chaos Computer Club supported the Berlin Senate\u2019s decision not to comply with the group\u2019s demands. Speaking on RBB Inforadio, she said it was the right position to take.<\/p>\n
If these groups continued to receive financial or other support, they would, of course, keep operating. They need to be deprived of funding.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Bianca Kastl<\/p>\n
Information security expert Christoph Fischer noted that the government is legally prohibited from making payments in response to extortion. At the same time, he emphasized the complexity of situations such as the cyberattack in Berlin.<\/p>\n
The data is in the hands of criminals, and its release can often have extremely damaging consequences. To date, I am not aware of a single case in which the ransom was paid but the data was released anyway.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Christoph Fischer<\/p>\n
Fischer also suggested that the attackers, who predominantly live in Eastern European countries, may hand stolen materials over to local authorities in exchange for protection from investigations into their own activities. The release of the Berlin data set poses risks both to government institutions and to the individuals and organizations whose information may have been exposed in the leak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A countdown ended without payment, and an enormous archive appeared online, raising urgent questions about who could be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,70236,75135,70238,190,38,72984,75136],"class_list":["post-160116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-cyberattack","tag-berlin-data-leak","tag-german-cybersecurity","tag-germany","tag-news","tag-rhysida-ransomware","tag-terminalfix-attack"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117218366317359576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}