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Hacker attacks in Germany are increasing – defense devours a lot of money

Regardless of whether municipalities, universities, hospitals or the state administration – all of them are recording an increasing number of hacker attacks on their IT systems. If such an action succeeds, it quickly creates problems for many people in the country.

Many institutions and organizations in Thuringia have had to contend with an increasing threat from the Internet in recent years. According to the Ministry of Finance, the state administration of the Free State of Thuringia is regularly exposed to hacker attacks. Around 88,000 e-mails that were loaded with malicious codes in one way or another were intercepted in 2020 by the security technology of the state data network, said a spokeswoman for the finance ministry. In addition, almost seven million further attack attempts were repulsed in the previous year.

“In principle, attacks could be detected in good time and contained or fended off.” In Thuringia, the Ministry of Finance is primarily responsible for the state’s IT security.

Cyber ​​defense requires specialists

According to the Ministry of Finance, the state, like numerous municipalities, primarily relies on its own staff to defend against hacker and cyber attacks. Sometimes, however, experts from external IT security companies are also used to solve specific problems. “In this respect, impulses from external consultants and specialists are essential for an optimal result,” said the spokeswoman.

A spokesman for the SRH Central Clinic in Suhl reported that attempts by criminals and other cyberattackers to obtain passwords or similar data via fake emails had “steadily increased” over the past few years. According to the spokesman, a large part of the IT security at the SRH Central Clinic Suhl is guaranteed by the collaboration of an SRH-owned technology company that works for the group’s hospitals at various locations. In addition to the work of these security guards, it is also important to make all employees in the company aware of “how to behave correctly when dealing with suspicious emails with links or attachments”.

The city administrations of Jena and Weimar also said that the number of cyber attacks on the systems of both municipalities had recently increased. In the meantime, around 5,000 e-mails per day are classified as spam in the IT systems of the Weimar city administration alone. The administration reacted to this. “Protection has been significantly intensified in recent years,” said a spokesman for the Weimar city administration.

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A spokesman for the city administration of Jena – as the only one among those questioned – openly admitted that there had already been successful attacks on the technical systems of the municipality. According to him, the annual costs for cyber defense are around 25,000 to 150,000 euros per year for the Jena city administration alone – “depending on whether the security systems are upgraded or ‘just’ support and maintenance costs”. These costs do not include the necessary personnel expenses for urban IT staff.

High security cost

The spokeswoman for the state put the cost of cyber defense in the Free State at around 20 million euros a year. However, it is only an estimate, she said. “It is not possible to determine a specific number for security measures, as these are predominantly already an integral part of the concept phase of IT projects,” she said. Roughly, one can assume that around 15 to 20 percent of the country’s IT expenditure is used for the security of technical systems.

A spokesman for the Technical University of Ilmenau said that there too it was recently discovered that “there has been a significant increase in hacker attacks on our facility”. The university has therefore intensified its efforts to protect itself from this. This has happened to such an extent that “the effort that we have to put in is unfortunately at the expense of our core tasks of research and teaching”. He also did not want to provide any further details for security reasons. dpa

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