Germany recalls ambassador from Russia because of hacker attack

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After a suspected hacker attack, Germany has recalled its ambassador to Russia for week-long consultations.

Last week, the federal government accused Russian agents of hacking board members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and other government targets.

The Foreign Office in Berlin said the government was taking the latest incident “seriously” and that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had decided to recall German Ambassador Alexander Lambsdorff. He would return to Moscow after a week, it was said.

“The federal government takes this event very seriously and represents behavior against our liberal democracy and the institutions that support it,” said Foreign Office spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer.

Baerbock said last week that Russian military cyber operators were behind the hacking of emails from the Social Democrats, the leading party in the ruling coalition.

Officials said the hackers exploited Microsoft Outlook.

“Irresponsible behavior”

The federal government condemned the hack, which it said came from the state-controlled Russian cyber group APT28.

“Such irresponsible behavior in cyberspace violates international cyber norms and deserves special attention, especially in a year when elections are taking place in many countries,” said a translated statement from the German embassy in Russia.

The German Interior Ministry said last week that the hacking campaign began as early as March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The hacker attacks focus on German companies, including those in the defense and aerospace sectors, as well as targets related to the war in Ukraine. German officials said the attacks continued for months.

In Prague, the Czech Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador over the attacks by the same APT28 group, which is linked to the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.

“I have decided to summon the Russian ambassador because of the cyber attacks on Czech institutions and critical infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on the social media network X.

“We have called on the Russian Federation to refrain from this behavior, which contradicts UN standards and its own commitments.”