The current state of cyber security

In view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) continuously assesses the situation with regard to information security in Germany. The BSI continues to identify an increased threat situation for Germany. Since the beginning of Russia's attack on Ukraine, there have been individual IT security incidents in Germany in this context, but they have only had isolated effects. Among other things, these were collateral damage from cyber activities in the context of the war as well as individual targeted attacks against companies and organisations, also from the area of critical infrastructures.

The BSI repeatedly observes distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by hacktivists against targets in Germany and internationally.

Due to the existing dependencies on energy imports, the electricity, gas and mineral oil sectors - as parts of critical infrastructures - are currently of exceptional relevance. The energy sector is therefore currently a particularly attractive target for cyber attacks.

From the BSI's point of view, ransomware attacks are currently the greatest operational threat to IT security (ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) and double extortion with data leaks).
Supply chains: Increasing networking of IT infrastructures and dependencies of supply chains increase the attack surface.

Increasingly, cyber criminals are encrypting data from companies and institutions in sophisticated multi-stage attacks to extort ransom. Dealing with vulnerabilities - especially in products with wide distribution and high market penetration - is and remains one of the greatest challenges of information security as a basis for successful digitalisation.

Based on exemplary incidents and trends to be observed in cyber attacks, the lecture will give an overview of the far-reaching effects on the situation of cyber security. In addition, the BSI's offers and support services will be presented.