BERLIN (Sputnik) — The Federal Information Security Office (BSI) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the counter-intelligence agency, confirmed the attack to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The cyberattack was reportedly carried out through an Israeli news website or its fake copy that infected at least one of the computers with malware.
Several of the targeted lawmakers told the news outlet it was not simply a virus. According to the BSI, the infection of multiple computers in a short time pointed to a serious security incident. Affected accounts have been reset to avoid being compromised.
German cybersecurity and intelligence services have been on alert since a breach of the Bundestag network in May 2015 caused 16 Gigabyte of sensitive parliamentary data to be leaked to what German media claimed was a Russian group of hackers, although no proof was provided.