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Cyber attack activities in Germany are showing an upward trend. Thousands of such attacks are counted every day. A significant part of this comes from Russia.
Neckarsulm – What do the Port of Hamburg, the Schwarz Group from Neckarsulm and the CDU together? You all know what it’s like to be targeted by Russian hackers. The number of cyber attacks in Germany has been increasing dramatically for several years. It is often foreign actors who want to steal either money or critical data. The example of the Schwarz Group shows how deeply the problem has become established in Germany.
Cyber attacks on the Schwarz Group have multiplied – “350,000 times a day”
The Schwarz Group, including the parent company of the grocers Lidl and Kaufland, is under fire from the Internet. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war in Ukraine, the number of cyberattacks has increased a hundredfold – from 3,500 attacks per day to 350,000 per day. “We are now being attacked 350,000 times a day, especially from Russia,” CEO Gerd Chrzanowski told the company South German newspaper. Together with the AI specialist ServiceNow from the USA, the group is now working on security solutions based on artificial intelligence.
Vladimir Putin in Moscow (symbolic photo). Cyber attacks are continuing to increase in Germany. There are thousands of attacks every day. A large part of it comes from Russia. © IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire /Mikhail Metzel/Kremlin Pool
The Schwarz Group also wants to make these solutions available to the competition. “We compete on eggs, bananas and milk. But not in cybersecurity. We have to work together here,” explained the Schwarz boss. “If one of us is attacked, it affects all of us.” Chrzanowski also warned against storing critical data on servers abroad.
Cyber attacks are increasing drastically – Bitkom warns about China and Russia
The damage caused by cyber attacks – especially from abroad – has already alarmed the Federal Criminal Police Office and industry associations to a high degree. “Cybercrime crimes continue to be at a high level in Germany,” explained the BKA in the Federal Cybercrime 2023 situation report published in the summer. The trend shows that cyberattacks from within the country are decreasing slightly, while those from abroad are decreasing to an almost extreme extent gain weight. In 2023, the number of so-called foreign crimes rose by 28 percent.
The financial damage caused by cyber attacks to the German economy amounted to around 148 billion euros in 2023. When making this statement, the BKA referred to data from the industry association Bitkom. This announced in August 2024 that 81 percent of all German companies were victims of data theft, digital and analogue industrial espionage and sabotage between August 2024 and the same month of the previous year. A year earlier, this proportion was 72 percent.
Foreign secret services play a dangerous role here. At 20 percent, their share of all cyberattacks was significantly higher than a year before (seven percent). The most important “starting point for attacks on the German economy” is Chinareported Bitkom. 45 percent of the affected companies are said to have traced at least one attack to China. Russia is just behind with a share of 39 percent.
Cybercrime as a business model – billions are at stake
According to the federal government, these three crimes in particular are particularly popular forms of cyber attacks:
- Ransomware: Here, attackers gain access to third-party systems, encrypt them either completely or partially and demand a ransom before releasing them again.
- Phishing: Derived from the English fishing, which means fishing. Attackers send deceptively real-looking emails, text messages or even links to elaborately fake websites that are intended to trick the victim into entering their data.
- DDoS attacks: Abbreviation for “Distributed Denial of Service”. This is about overloading a system or server with targeted mass calls.
The main problem is that many cybercrime crimes have now developed into a kind of business model. Anyone who is willing can “buy” them on the digital black market.
