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Germany challenges Russia over alleged cyberattacks

Hans-Georg Maassen, Germany's head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz) addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany, in this file photo dated June 28, 2016. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency accused Russian rivals of gathering large amounts of political data in cyber attacks and said it was up to the Kremlin to decide whether it wanted to put it to use ahead of Germany’s September elections.

Moscow denies it has in any way been involved in cyber attacks on the German political establishment.

Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the BfV agency, said “large amounts of data” were seized during a May 2015 cyber attack on the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, which has previously been blamed on APT28, a Russian hacking group.

Maassen, speaking with reporters after a cyber conference in Potsdam, repeated his warning from last December in which he said Russia was increasing cyber attacks, propaganda and other efforts to destabilize German society.

Some cyber experts have drawn clear links between APT28 and the GRU Russian military intelligence organization.

Maassen said there had been subsequent attacks after the 2015 Bundestag hack that were directed at lawmakers, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and other party-affiliated institutions, but it was unclear if they had resulted in the loss of data.

Germany’s top cyber official last week confirmed attacks on two foundations affiliated with Germany’s ruling coalition parties that were first identified by security firm Trend Micro.

“We recognize this as a campaign being directed from Russia. Our counterpart is trying to generate information that can be used for disinformation or for influencing operations,” he said. “Whether they do it or not is a political decision … that I assume will be made in the Kremlin.”

Maassen said it appeared that Moscow had acted in a similar manner in the United States, making a “political decision” to use information gathered through cyber attacks to try to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Maassen told reporters that Germany was working hard to strengthen its cyber defenses, but also needed the legal framework for offensive operations.

Berlin was studying what legal changes were needed to allow authorities to purge stolen data from third-party servers, and to potentially destroy servers used to carry out cyber attacks.

“We believe it is necessary that we are in a position to be able to wipe out these servers if the providers and the owners of the servers are not ready to ensure that they are not used to carry out attacks,” Maassen said.

He said intelligence agencies knew which servers were used by various hacker groups, including APT10, APT28 and APT29.

The German government also remained deeply concerned about the possibility that German voters could be manipulated by fake news items, like the bogus January 2016 story about the rape of a 13-year Russian-German girl by migrants that sparked demonstrations by over 12,000 members of that community.

He said another attempt was made in January shortly after the Social Democrats named former European Parliament President Martin Schulz as their chancellor candidate, with a Russian website carrying a blatantly false story about Schulz’s father having run a Nazi concentration camp.

However that story did not receive as much attention.

Officials also remained concerned that real information seized during cyber attacks could be used to discredit politicians or affect the election, he said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Madeline Chambers)

Germany must lift border controls, EU executive says

FILE PHOTO: Syrian refugees arrive at the camp for refugees and migrants in Friedland, Germany April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway should lift border controls within six months, the European Commission said on Tuesday, hours after Sweden said it was also planning to end frontier checks.

Part of the European Union’s response to a surge of refugees and migrants in 2015, the bloc allowed controls in its passport-free area, despite concerns about the impact on trade, but EU home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said they should now end.

“The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area,” he said of the passport-free area named after a town in Luxembourg and meant to be a symbol of free movement in the bloc.

“Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to … protect it,” Avramopoulos said in a speech.

More than a million people sought asylum in Europe’s rich north in 2015, mostly in Germany but also in large numbers in Sweden, straining the capacity of countries to cope.

A contentious deal with Turkey to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Greece and the overland route to Germany, in return for EU funds, has reduced flows to a trickle, although thousands of migrants still try to reach Europe from Libya via sea routes.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it would remove ID checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden. However, its policy was not immediately clear after it said it would also maintain surveillance cameras and x-raying vehicles passing over the border.

Germany has argued it needs the controls despite the fall in migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans to combat the threat of Islamic militancy in Europe.

Under EU rules, the countries were allowed to impose the emergency controls for up to two years in September 2015.

The EU executive approved six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, at Austria’s frontiers with Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.

EU governments must now agree to the recommendations.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Francesco Guarascio)

Netanyahu will skip talks if German minister meets left-wing group: Israeli official

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath during a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem April 24, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday threatened to cancel a meeting with Germany’s foreign minister if he sits down with a left-wing rights group, an Israeli official said.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel was due to meet with “civil society” groups on Tuesday, said a spokeswoman in Berlin who declined to identify the groups.

Israeli media said Gabriel would meet with “Breaking the Silence,” a group that collects testimonies from Israeli veterans about the military’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the influence it says Israeli settlers have on the army’s actions.

The German spokeswoman had no comment on Netanyahu’s threat to cancel his meeting with Gabriel. Officials traveling with Gabriel were not immediately available for comment.

Germany in March canceled an annual meeting of German and Israeli leaders that was to take place in May amid rising frustration in Berlin with settlement activity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Gabriel is visiting the Middle East to press for a two-state solution to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian government.

Gabriel appealed to the Israeli government to continue to work for a pluralistic society and defy nationalism in a column to be published Tuesday, said the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau.

“Democracy is the most difficult and at the same time best form of government because it continues to seek common ground in a never-ending dialogue, even despite very different viewpoints and positions that run contrary to peaceful coexistence,” he wrote.

In February, Netanyahu ordered the reprimand of the Belgian ambassador after Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel with representatives Breaking the Silence and B’tselem, another rights group, during his visit to the region.

Both organizations have become popular targets for right-wing politicians who accuse them of damaging Israel’s reputation abroad and putting Israeli soldiers and officials at risk of prosecution.

In 2016 Israel passed a law requiring non-government organizations that receive more than half their funding from foreign governments or bodies to provide details of their donations. The legislation was largely seen as targeting left-wing organizations such as B’tselem and Breaking the Silence and drew international criticism.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin, Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Number of migrant criminal suspects in Germany surged in 2016

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (R) and his Saxony state counterpart Markus Ulbig present the German crime statistics for 2016 during a news conference in Berlin, Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) – The number of migrant criminal suspects in Germany soared by more than 50 percent in 2016, data from the Interior Ministry showed on Monday – a statistic that could boost support for the anti-immigration party five months ahead of a federal election.

More than a million migrants have arrived in Germany in the last two years. Fears about security and integration initially pushed up the poll ratings of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), but the party’s support has slipped as the rate of arrivals has slowed.

The number of suspects classed as immigrants – those applying for asylum, refugees, illegal immigrants and those whose deportation has been temporarily suspended – rose to 174,438, 52.7 percent more than the previous year.

The number of German suspects declined by 3.4 percent to 1,407,062.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said crimes committed by refugees had “increased disproportionately” last year and warned: “Those who commit serious offences here forfeit their right to stay here.”

But he said some migrants committed multiple offences, distorting the statistics, and that most migrants lived peacefully and obeyed German law.

Migrants accounted for 8.6 percent of all crime suspects in Germany in 2016, up from 5.7 percent the previous year.

De Maiziere said one reason for the high crime rate among migrants was likely to be their accommodation situation. In 2016 many were living in makeshift shelters or sharing crowded rooms.

The number of attacks on refugee homes has declined for the first time since data started being collected in 2014. Some 995 were carried out in 2016, compared with 1,031 the previous year.

Crimes motivated by Islamism increased by 13.7 percent, the report showed. In December a failed Tunisian asylum seeker who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Andrew Roche)

Police injured in protests against right-wing AfD party congress

Activists protest against Germany's anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AFD) before the AFD's party congress in Cologne, Germany, April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) – Two police officers were injured and a police car was set ablaze during protests in Cologne on Saturday, police said, as some 600 delegates of the deeply divided anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party met to discuss policy for September’s national elections.

AfD co-chief Frauke Petry suffered a crushing blow at the start of the congress when delegates voted down her motion calling for efforts to forge alliances with other parties in future rather than seeking to be a long-term opposition force. Her critics deny any split along these lines in the party.

Petry announced on Wednesday after a months-long power struggle that she would not lead the national election campaign of the party, a pariah in the German political landscape that has seen its poll numbers wane over the past few months. [nL8N1HR3UX]

A spokesman for the Cologne police said the situation in the city was “very dynamic” and “fairly aggressive” in some areas.

Over 4,000 police, many clad in riot gear and some on horseback, were braced for riots with as many 50,000 protesters expected, including about 1,000 hard left activists.

The spokesman said police stopped about 100 protesters early on Saturday for identity checks, but they were not detained.

Broadcaster n-tv showed a group of around 50 people clashing with police on horses, and a television correspondent said police used pepper spray against some of the demonstrators.

The AfD, which rails against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million migrants over the past two years, is polling between eight to 10 percent support ahead of September’s election.

That is enough to give the party seats in parliament for the first time, but well below peak support seen in late 2016.

In her opening speech, before which she received a standing ovation from some party members, Petry signaled she was willing to make compromises on her controversial motion for the party’s future strategy.

Petry has upset many within the party by introducing a motion in which she said the AfD should aim to join coalitions in future and govern, instead of being a “fundamental” opposition party that only made provocative statements.

But a majority of delegates voted around mid-day on Saturday against discussing her motion.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Markus Wacket in Berlin and Reuters TV, and Michelle Martin in Cologne; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Berlin Christmas market attacker got order directly from IS: report

FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the site where a truck ploughed through a crowd at a Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz square near the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm avenue in the west of Berlin, Germany, December 19, 2016 REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

BERLIN (Reuters) – The Tunisian who killed 12 people by driving a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin received his orders directly from Islamic State, a German magazine reported on Saturday.

The militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on Dec. 19, but it was unclear whether it had planned and executed it, or just inspired the attacker with its calls on supporters to hit targets in enemy countries.

Der Spiegel cited information provided to German security authorities from the United Arab Emirates on Jan. 8 that said Anis Amri, the failed asylum seeker who drove the truck into the crowd, had received an order from a squad within IS.

The squad is known to German authorities from other proceedings against suspected IS militants disguised as refugees, the magazine said.

Amri, who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, was shot dead by Italian police in Milan four days after the Berlin attack. Islamic State said the attack had been perpetrated by an IS “soldier … in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition countries”.

The federal public prosecutor’s office and the BKA federal police are looking into the information provided by the UAE, the magazine said, adding that German authorities considered the source to be reliable.

When asked for comment, the BKA said the federal public prosecutor’s office was responsible for providing information on the Amri case. The prosecutor’s office declined to comment.

On Wednesday, the prosecutor’s office said it had no evidence that other people based in Germany were involved in preparing or carrying out the attack and an evaluation of Amri’s mobile phone showed he had communicated with an IS member abroad before and during the attack.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Additional reporting by Holger Hansen; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Germany says suspected Islamist detained over soccer attack

Football Soccer - Borussia Dortmund v AS Monaco - UEFA Champions League Quarter Final First Leg - Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund, Germany - 11/4/17 Police with the Borussia Dortmund team bus after an explosion near their hotel before the game

By Tilman Blasshofer and Matthias Inverardi

KARLSRUHE/DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) – German authorities arrested a suspected Islamist on Wednesday in connection with an attack on a bus carrying players of one of the country’s top soccer teams, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said she was “appalled” by Tuesday evening’s attack on the Borussia Dortmund bus, in which Spanish defender Marc Bartra was injured.

The incident forced a 24-hour postponement of the team’s high-profile clash with AS Monaco, and officials said security had been stepped up for that game and a second Champions League quarter-final in Germany on Wednesday, between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.

Ralf Jaeger, interior minister in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia which includes Dortmund, said the investigation was looking “in all directions”, and it was unclear if one or several attackers were involved.

The spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutors, who handle probes into suspected terrorism, said investigators had found three letters near the scene of the attack, all with the same content suggesting a possible Islamist motive.

Spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said the letters referred to the use of Tornado reconnaissance planes in Syria, which Germany has deployed as part of the military campaign against Islamic State, and also called for the closure of the U.S. military base at Ramstein in western Germany.

She also noted an online claim of responsibility by an anti-fascist group, but said there was serious doubt about its validity.

Investigators had identified two suspects from the “Islamist scene”, searched their apartments and detained one man, she said.

Football Soccer - Borussia Dortmund v AS Monaco - UEFA Champions League Quarter Final First Leg - Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund, Germany

Forensic experts search the area where the explosion occurred. Soccer – Borussia Dortmund v AS Monaco – UEFA Champions League Quarter Final First Leg – Signal Iduna Park, Dortmund, Germany – 11/4/17 Forensic experts search the area where the explosion occured Reuters / Kai Pfaffenbach Livepic

DEFENDER INJURED

The blasts smashed windows on the bus carrying the players to the stadium for the match against AS Monaco. Bartra was operated on for a broken bone in his right wrist and shrapnel in his arm, a team spokesman said.

“The chancellor was last night, like people in Dortmund, like millions everywhere, appalled by the attack on the BVB team bus,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference.

“One can only be relieved that the consequences were not worse,” he said, praising Dortmund fans for offering accommodation to AS Monaco fans after the postponement.

Bartra, 26, joined Dortmund for 8 million euros ($8.5 million) last year from Barcelona, after coming through the Catalan club’s youth system. He has made 12 appearances for the Spanish national team.

European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, said there had been no specific intelligence regarding any threat to any of Wednesday’s Champions League fixtures, which also include a match in Spain between Atletico Madrid and England’s Leicester City.

UEFA “is reviewing the security arrangements for tonight’s matches and security procedures will be enhanced accordingly wherever needed,” it said, asking supporters to allow extra time for the possibility of enhanced checks.

Police in Munich said they were deploying an additional 80 officers and strengthening security around hotels and key routes for the match there.

The blasts revived memories of Islamist militant attacks in Paris in November 2015 whose targets included a stadium where France were playing Germany in a soccer friendly.

Security is among the issues at the heart of Germany’s parliamentary election on Sept. 24, a tight battle in which Merkel is running for a fourth term. In December, a Tunisian man killed 12 people when he plowed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr, Paul Carrel, Anneli Palmen and Jens Hack; Writing by Mark Trevelyan)

German cabinet agrees to fine social media over hate speech

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German cabinet approved a plan on Wednesday to fine social networks up to 50 million euros ($53 million) if they do not remove hateful postings quickly, prompting concerns the law could limit free expression.

Germany already has some of the world’s toughest hate speech laws covering defamation, public incitement to commit crimes and threats of violence, backed up by prison sentences for Holocaust denial or inciting hatred against minorities.

“There should be just as little tolerance for criminal rabble rousing on social networks as on the street,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement, adding that he would seek to push for similar rules at a European level.

The issue has taken on more urgency as German politicians worry that a proliferation of fake news and racist content, particularly about 1 million migrants who have arrived in the last two years, could sway public opinion in the run-up to the national election in September.

However, organizations representing digital companies, consumers and journalists, accused the government of rushing a law to parliament that could damage free speech.

“It is the wrong approach to make social networks into a content police,” said Volker Tripp, head of the Digital Society Association consumer group.

The draft law would give social networks 24 hours to delete or block obviously criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases, with an obligation to report back to the person who filed the complaint about how they handled the case.

Failure to comply could see a company fined up to 50 million euros, and the company’s chief representative in Germany fined up to 5 million euros.

Bitkom, an association which represents digital companies, said the government should build up specialist teams to monitor online content for potential infringements, rather than expect social networks to do it themselves.

“Given the short deadlines and the severe penalties, providers will be forced to delete doubtful statements as a precaution. That would have a serious impact on free speech on the internet,” said Bitkom manager Bernhard Rohleder.

Since it was unveiled last month, the draft law has been amended to include new categories of content, such as child pornography. It also now allows courts to order social networks to reveal the identity of the user behind criminal posts.

To address free speech concerns, the legislation was tweaked to make clear that a fine would not necessarily be imposed after just one infraction. “It is clear that freedom of expression is of huge importance in our vibrant democracy … however, freedom of expression ends where criminal law begins,” Maas said. Maas said a government survey showed Facebook deleted just 39 percent of content deemed criminal and Twitter only 1 percent, even though they signed a code of conduct in late 2015 including a pledge to delete hate speech within 24 hours.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson and Thorsten Severin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

German military can use ‘offensive measures’ against cyber attacks: minister

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen in Berlin, Germany, March 22, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German military has the authority to respond with “offensive measures” if its computer networks are attacked, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, amid growing concerns among German lawmakers about control of such actions.

Von der Leyen, speaking at the opening ceremony for Germany’s new cyber command in Bonn, gave no details of what kind of retaliation she had in mind.

“If the German military’s networks are attacked, then we can defend ourselves. As soon as an attack endangers the functional and operational readiness of combat forces, we can respond with offensive measures,” she said.

She added that the German military could be called in to help in the event of cyber attacks on other governmental institutions. During foreign missions, its actions would be governed and bounded by the underlying parliamentary mandate.

Any legal questions would be addressed by the military in close cooperation with other government agencies, she added.

The new Bonn-based command has an initial staff of 260 that will grow to around 13,500 in July.

Von der Leyen’s decision to sanction offensive cyber actions in principle has caused some concerns among German lawmakers, including Agnieszka Brugger, a member of the pro-environment Greens and member of the defense committee.

Military ombudsman Hans-Peter Bartels, who fields complaints from soldiers for parliament, told the Neue Osnabrueckner Zeitung newspaper on Wednesday that every offensive measure required explicit approval by the parliament since Germany’s military is a so-called “parliamentary army”.

German officials told reporters earlier this week that the government was scrambling to respond to serious and growing cyber threats, but civilian officials said they lacked the legal framework to retaliate with cyber attacks of their own.

However, von der Leyen made clear on Wednesday that she was convinced the authorities were clear in the military realm.

Deputy Defence Minister Katrin Suder told reporters on Monday that existing laws applied, even in cyberspace.

Von der Leyen said Berlin was increasing expenditure to keep up with technical innovations.

Germany’s current military budget included 1.6 billion euros for information technology-related items, ranging from new radios and hardware to service contracts, and spending was slated to increase significantly in 2018, she said.

The military also spent around 1 billion euros a year on personnel.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Powell)

German military to unveil new cyber command as threats grow

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s military will launch a cyber command next week as part of an effort to beef up online defenses at a time when German spy agencies are warning of increasing cyber attacks by Russia.

The German military remains a high-value target for hackers, with some 284,000 complex and professional would-be attacks registered in the first nine weeks of 2017, a ministry spokesman said. No damage had been reported thus far, he added.

Cyber attacks on militaries are rising worldwide, with many now creating separate commands to tackle the issue.

NATO, which says it has seen a five-fold increase in suspicious events on its networks in the past three years, agreed last June to designate cyber as an official operational domain of warfare, along with air, land and sea.

The new German command will based in Bonn with an initial staff of 260, growing to around 13,500 in July when the military’s current strategic reconnaissance command and centers for operational communication and geo-information are folded in.

By 2021, the command is due to have a total of 14,500 positions, including 1,500 civilian jobs.

“The expansion of cyber capabilities is an essential contribution to the government’s overall security posture, and offers additional opportunities for preventing conflicts and dealing with crises to include hybrid threats,” the ministry spokesman said.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen will name Lieutenant General Ludwig Leinhos to head the new Cyber and Information Space Command – the sixth major wing of the military in addition to the navy, army, air force, medical service and joint forces.

Chancellor Angela Merkel this month said protecting German infrastructure from potential cyber attacks was a top priority.

In December, Germany’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies cited increasing Russian cyber attacks against political parties, as well as propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing German society.

Russia denies engaging in such attacks.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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