Germany’s federal government plans to adopt a more forceful approach to cyberattacks. “We will enable countermeasures and set a low threshold for them” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the Saturday edition of “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “We will strike back, even abroad. We will disrupt attackers and destroy their infrastructure”.
He said that Germany is “constantly hit by cyberattacks on institutions, infrastructure, and businesses”. Often these attacks stem from groups linked to state intelligence agencies and financed by them, pointing to hybrid incidents from Russia and other parts of the world. “We cannot accept this” Dobrindt added.
To carry out such counter‑attacks, he says intelligence services and the Federal Criminal Police Office will collaborate. The interior ministry is creating a new center to counter hybrid threats, currently being set up by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and it is expected to begin work later this year.
Dobrindt also wants German intelligence agencies to gain new powers for gathering information and operating. “We have been too long dependent on information from others. It’s clear that we need a turning point for the intelligence services” he said. He aims to let them acquire more information independently and take operational action, proposing legislation on the matter in the first half of the year.