Five young men from several federal states are being investigated on suspicion of computer sabotage. They are said to have blocked the telephones of police stations for short periods of time over several weeks. In total, over 800 police stations in Germany and neighboring countries have been affected by the attacks since the beginning of the year, according to the police in Osnabrück. Several of the suspects' homes were searched at the end of June.[1]
The five suspects, aged between 16 and 19, are said to have blocked the police lines via telephone conference. They used a dial-out conference in which the participants do not dial into the conference system but are called instead. The affected departments were called repeatedly, which resulted in the lines being blocked for other callers. The downtimes only lasted from a few moments to 74 seconds. However, the callers were unable to defend themselves against the repeated calls, resulting in a longer period of blockage. It was also not possible for the officers to stop the process.
At the end of June, officers from the Osnabrück Central Criminal Investigation Department's specialist cybercrime unit searched several residential properties in Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, and Bremen. The measures were directed at addresses in Wentorf near Hamburg, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Eppingen, and Bremen, among others. The search warrants were requested by the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office—Central Office for Internet and Computer Crime (Cybercrime). “Cyber-attacks on the police are not a trivial offense, they can have a massive impact on our colleagues' day-to-day work,” says Laura-Christin Brinkmann, spokesperson for the Osnabrück police department, according to a press release. “Especially in times when rapid availability can be crucial, such disruptions are particularly serious.”
Numerous electronic devices were seized during searches which included smartphones, laptops, external storage media, and network technology.
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[1] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Cyber-attack-via-conference-call-five-young-men-under-suspicion-10483174.html
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