Ralf Kleindiek, CDO and State Secretary for Digital Affairs and Administrative Modernisation in Berlin.
© dpa
The cyber attack on websites of Berlin authorities is over. No more corresponding activities were detected, it was reported on Thursday.
According to the report, on Wednesday unknown persons had flooded the service portal Berlin.de with requests in the course of a so-called DDoS attack in order to specifically overload the servers. The result was a significant slowdown of the portal, which Berlin's authorities use to provide information and citizens can handle services digitally.
According to the interior administration, the attack began shortly after 8 a.m. on Wednesday. On Thursday, everything was reportedly back to normal at the portal. "However, isolated undesirable side effects due to the countermeasures taken cannot be ruled out," the interior administration explained.
"This was the largest cyber-attack on websites of the Berlin state administration so far," said the State Secretary for Digital Affairs, Ralf Kleindiek. The attack was part of a nationwide attack. "That's why our websites were slower to access on Wednesday." The infrastructure was not affected: "Data was not leaked or stolen, there were no infiltrations. Our protective measures are working." According to the state's IT service centre, the internal state network was not affected by the attack.