Germany’s critical infrastructure is poorly protected
It was big news when Germany’s interior minister sacked the country’s cybersecurity chief, Arne Schönbohm, this month. The decision came after reports that he had contacts with Russian intelligence services. The national cybersecurity agency, BSI, is the federal office responsible for IT security in Germany and reports to the Ministry of the Interior.
This latest event again highlights just how delicate the situation is in Germany when it comes to “critical infrastructure” – systems so vital to a country that their failure would have a debilitating impact on national security. This includes power grids, rail links and the production processes of large industrial companies.
Security experts have long sounded the alarm that important infrastructure in Germany is poorly protected, especially against cyberattacks.
“There is a lot of infrastructure in Germany that is particularly relevant and needs to be prioritized,” said Alexander Fekete, professor of risk and crisis management at the Technical University of Cologne. MDR public radio. “This critical infrastructure is essential for basic supply, for example with water, electricity, heating, but also for disseminating information”.
This critical infrastructure includes transport and traffic. A few days ago, an attack on the German railroad made headlines: essential cables in the rail network’s communication system were cut, paralyzing almost all rail traffic in northern Germany. Investigators assume sabotage, but who the perpetrators are is unknown. The only thing that is clear is that the railroads were more or less defenseless in the face of this attack and that the perpetrators knew exactly which cables to cut where to sabotage the rail traffic of an entire region.
Source: DW
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