Justice Minister Katarina Barley, following the data theft, is considering stricter security requirements for software manufacturers and Internet platform operators among several hundred politicians and celebrities.
"We examine the extent to which stricter legal requirements are useful and necessary," said the SPD politician of the "Welt am Sonntag". Software vendors and platform operators need to ensure high security standards and regular updates, Barley demands. For the highest possible data security, a "strong awareness when dealing with personal data is essential".
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On Friday it had become known that data such as mobile phone numbers and email addresses of hundreds of German politicians and other celebrities had been disseminated on the Internet. So far it is not known if they were obtained by intrusion into computer networks or misappropriated.
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A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced on Saturday that the Central Office for Combating Internet and Computer Crime (ZIT) had started the investigation and is cooperating with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The ZIT is a special unit of the Attorney General in Frankfurt. With regard to the data the German Federal Ministry of the Interior speaks of "unauthorized publication", since it is not clear who has collected the data by which means.
Criticism at the BSI
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has already known for weeks of the massive theft of personal data of politicians and celebrities. "At a very early stage in December, we had already spoken with individual Members affected by it accordingly." Countermeasures were also initiated. Among other things, a special team for assistance with affected persons (Mobile Incident Response Team) has been sent. "Therefore, there were early on certain actions," said BSI President Arne Schönbohm told the television station Phoenix.
Even the BKA learned according to its own account of the publication until the night of Friday.
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The domestic spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Burkhard Lischka, demanded a quick explanation about possible mistakes of the security authorities. "If it turns out that the BSI already knew weeks ago about the publication of hacked data without informing the other security authorities, this is completely unacceptable."
Meanwhile, the CDU interior expert Armin Schuster spoke for more competencies of the BSI: "I think it is necessary that the BSI will be actively involved in the IT defense of the Bundestag in the future and we will be on this way as safe as the government network."