German police report shows increase in cybercrime coming from abroad

The dangers posed by cyberattacks in Germany have continued to increase over the past year, according to a report by Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

"Cybercrime is now one of the most relevant criminal police phenomena in Germany," said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser at the presentation of the National Situation Report on Cybercrime for 2023 on Monday.

In particular, the number of offences committed from abroad or from an unknown location has been increasing, according to the report.

According to the BKA, the number of cybercrime offences recorded from abroad increased by around 28% compared to the previous year. In Germany, the police crime statistics for the same period recorded a slight decrease in cybercrime offences of 1.8%.

"It should also be noted that these figures only show the tip of the iceberg due to the enormous amount of unreported cybercrime," the minister said. "We assume that nine out of 10 cybercrime offences are not reported at all."

Ransomware attacks, in which criminals encrypt the data of companies or public administration and demand a ransom for decryption, continued to be among the most serious threats.

Across Germany, more than 800 companies and institutions reported ransomware cases in 2023, Faeser said.

"In 2023, public administrations and institutions such as universities and hospitals were increasingly the focus of overload attacks and ransomware attacks," she explained.

The Russian war against Ukraine had led to a particularly tense cybersecurity situation, the interior minister said.

Cybercrime once again caused high amounts of damage in 2023, as the BKA explained, citing figures from the digital association Bitkom.

According to Bitkom, the total damage caused to companies in Germany by analogue and digital theft, industrial espionage and sabotage amounted to €205.9 billion ($222 billion).

Almost three quarters of this total damage can be attributed to cyberattacks, Bitkom reported. The explicitly reported losses caused by blackmail with stolen or encrypted data totalled €16.1 billion.

Earlier on Monday, Bitkom spoke of an increasing number of cyberattacks from China and Russia.

Within two years, a doubling of attacks from Russia has been measured, managing director Bernhard Rohleder told German public broadcaster ZDF on Monday morning. There was also a 50% increase in the number of known incidents from China, he said.

Eighty percent of companies were targeted by attacks such as data theft, espionage or sabotage, according to the Bitkom director.

The amount of damage caused by cybercrime to companies in Germany has also increased over the years.

"The damage is €148 billion per year from cyber attacks alone, meaning digital attacks," said Bitkom's Rohleder ahead of the presentation of the report. "That is a very significant amount."

Organized crime is often behind these attacks, as are foreign intelligence services, he added.

"Some are after money," Rohleder said, adding that other perpetrators want to cause as much damage as possible, such as to critical infrastructure like the energy supply or hospitals.

"And there are still some, especially private individuals, who just want to have fun," he said.

Interior Minister Faeser added: "It is important to me that we continue to strengthen cyber defence and create further instruments that allow the federal government to act quickly in the event of serious cyber attacks and, above all, successfully fend them off."

Referring to a cyberattack against the ruling Social Democrats' (SPD) party headquarters, which the German government attributes to Russian military intelligence, she emphasized: "We will not be intimidated by the Russian regime under any circumstances."