Companies on alert due to BSI warning of hacker attacks

Frankfurt. Companies in Germany are on alert because of a warning from the IT security authority BSI of serious hacker attacks. Several companies polled by the Reuters news agency, including VW, Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom, said on Monday that they had increased their internal security measures and were closely monitoring the situation. So far, however, no attempted attacks have been recorded. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned on Saturday of an “extremely critical threat situation” and declared the highest warning level “red”.

Special teams should check IT security

Germany’s largest shipping company Hapag-Lloyd said the cybersecurity team had already reacted and adjusted the IT systems accordingly. “We remain alarmed and of course we will continue to keep a close eye on current developments.” Lufthansa called together a special force to check all systems and applications. At Telekom it was said that all customers had been asked to install the relevant updates as quickly as possible in order to keep the potential attack surface as small as possible. The group’s systems would be subjected to tests during the course of the day, so that there could be delays in applications.

Infineon, Deutsche Bank and Continental also stated that they have not yet registered any attacks, but that they want to remain vigilant. According to its own information, E.ON has been implementing various measures since Friday to minimize the risk of IT weaknesses.

Log4j: Problematic situation expected during the Christmas holidays

The security warning issued by the BSI specifically applies to the Log4j Java library. This software element is widespread and has an impact on countless other products. In addition, the vulnerability can be exploited without difficulty. This would allow attackers to take over the affected system completely. There are already mass scans in Germany and around the world as well as attempted and successful attacks.

The BSI had already warned of a threat from the malware “Emotet” at the beginning of December and spoke of a “threatening scenario”. The situation could become problematic, especially during the Christmas holidays, when the IT departments were thinned out and companies could not react quickly. According to the BSI, 144 million new malware variants were detected last year, an increase of 22 percent compared to the previous year.

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