Claudia Plattner, the director of Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), characterises the current cyberattack on Deutsche Bahn as an unusually large‑scale assault. She told the WDR that the attack is generating billions of requests per minute, describing it as “the larger edge, not a daily dimension”.
When asked whether the attack might be linked to Russia, Plattner did not name any perpetrators. She did, however, point out that the number of such attacks in Germany has risen since the war in Ukraine began, noting that a key objective appears to be spreading propaganda with the ominous message: “Look, we can strike you or your systems at any time”.
Plattner stressed that the rail systems, along with nationwide infrastructure, are well‑prepared to resist such onslaughts and that Germany is far from defenseless. She also mentioned that authorities and the railway’s IT departments are working closely together during the incident.
In a typical denial‑of‑service (DoS) attack, a massive flood of requests overwhelms an IT system and temporarily disables it. Plattner said the scale of this attack was such that several servers were brought down.
While the BSI chief believes the attack will not cause lasting damage, it is expected to create a serious but temporary disruption to everyday service.
Deutsche Bahn had earlier announced that the recent instability in its information and booking systems was due to a cyberattack. The problems have since been resolved. The DB Navigator app and the railway’s website were the primary services affected, starting from yesterday afternoon.