The conversations between high-ranking Bundeswehr soldiers about possible deployment scenarios for German Taurus cruise missiles in Ukraine, which were allegedly intercepted by Russian intelligence officers and published in excerpts, are also increasingly occupying the Bundestag. “Due to current circumstances,” Frank Blume, head of Parliament's IT security department, informed all MPs in an email on Tuesday “about the possibilities and risks when using WebEx” and other video conferencing systems.
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Programs like WebEx or Zoom “offer the possibility of enforcing end-to-end encryption for all participants by setting a parameter,” says the tutorial available online at heise. “However, this requires that the person inviting you sets up the video conference accordingly.”
“Can be easily listened to”
According to Blume, the right presets ensure “that only participants who use the corresponding app” can join such a meeting. If a conference is set up without these parameters, “when a telephone participant joins in, the entire meeting is unencrypted and can therefore be listened to without any problems.” This is exactly what was responsible for the intercepted WebEx conference at the Bundeswehr and the subsequent Taurus leaks, emphasized Blume.
According to the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD), a participant is said to have connected to the “exchange of ideas” from a hotel in Singapore via an “unauthorized” open connection to the WebEx conference. This is said to have led to a data leak. According to media reports, it was Brigadier General Frank Gräfe, head of the operations department at the Air Force Command in Berlin. On Monday, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) explained that Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartz was also the second of four participants to dial in via an insecure line. Possible legal consequences are still to be determined.
The federal government should act “decisively”.
The evidence “points to a Russian hack and leak operation,” explained the chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee (PKGr), which is responsible for secret services, Konstantin von Notz (Greens), and Alexander Hoffmann, chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The Parliamentary Control Committee shares the Defense Minister's opinion that the Federal Republic “must position itself to be significantly more robust, resilient and defensive in the future.” It therefore now expects the federal government to “proactively and decisively investigate the numerous issues that also point in this direction – also in order to recognize patterns.”
On Wednesday, the Bundestag also dealt with the wiretapping affair and Taurus transfers in plenary session as part of a current hour. Falko Drossmann (SPD) spoke of the leak as a “serious mistake: That shouldn't have happened.” For Jens Lehmann (CDU), the process shows “that Russia is not only waging a physical war in Ukraine, but also asymmetrically in Germany.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had previously reiterated his no to the Taurus delivery to MPs and justified this with Germany's security interests.
(vbr)