Germany summoned the charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency, citing the German newspaper “De Welt”, the ministry In response to the Russian cyber attack on the Social Democratic Party last year, the German Foreign Ministry summoned the temporary charge d’affaires of the Russian Embassy.

The spokesman of the German Foreign Ministry announced this news on Friday. According to him, such a summons is considered a strong diplomatic tool. The spokesman said: “This incident shows that Russia’s threat to security and peace in Europe is real and very great.” . He said: Russian government hackers attacked Germany in the cyberspace.

The German Prime Minister’s Social Democratic Party announced in June 2023 that the email accounts of the party’s managers were the target of a cyber attack in January. The chancellor’s party said at the time that this was made possible by a security flaw in software company Microsoft that was still unknown at the time of the attack. Foreign is now complete. The German official said: “Today we can clearly attribute this attack last year to the APT28 group, which is under the control of the Russian secret service GRU.” He stressed: This is completely unacceptable and will not be without consequences.

According to the German Constitutional Protection Agency, the APT28 group has been active around the world since at least 2004, mainly in the field of cyber espionage. Is. According to this claim, in the past, he has led propaganda campaigns and false information in the cyberspace and is among the most active and dangerous cyber players in the world. Matthew Miller, the spokesperson of the US State Department, also blamed Russia for the hacking attack.

The APT28 group, also known as “Stylish Bear”, was responsible for a major cyberattack on the Bundestag in 2015 and later in the United States for attacking the Democratic Party before The 2017 presidential election was announced.

According to information from the German news agency, all German secret services, including the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Federal Intelligence Service and the Military Counterintelligence Service, were involved in the federal government’s investigation.

Based on current information, the attack on the Social Democratic Party is said to be part of an APT28 campaign in several European countries targeting government departments and companies dealing in energy, information technology, weapons or aerospace.

The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s most important decision-making body, had previously expressed its deep concern about the increase in Russian cyber attacks, but without providing details.

The European Union too. “Strongly condemned the Russian-controlled Advanced Persistent Threat (APT28) cyber-malicious campaign against Germany. EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell said on behalf of the European Union on Friday that the European Union is committed to using the full range of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behavior in cyberspace.

European Union State institutions, agencies and facilities in member states, including Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden, have already been attacked by the same “threat actor,” it said. In 2020, the European Union imposed sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for the APT28 attacks on the Bundestag in 2015.

The statement said Russia’s behavior met UN standards for responsible government behavior in space. Cyber ​​is the opposite. The European Union will not tolerate such malicious behavior.

Due to the continuation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the European Union has also been preparing the 14th package of sanctions against Moscow for weeks.

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