(Berlin) – A computer security breach allowed access to information about at least 6,000 German military meetings taking place on the video conferencing platform Webex, online media outlet Zeit reported on Saturday, two months after a secret military meeting was leaked over the same network. a tool.
Through a search conducted by the news site, it was possible to access the address, date, time or name of the person calling important German army meetings on Webex.
“More than 6,000 meetings can be found online,” wrote Zeit newspaper, some of which were categorized, for example, on the topic of long-range Taurus missiles claimed by Ukraine or the “digital battlefield.”
In addition, the virtual meeting rooms for the 248,000 members of the German military were easily identifiable, thanks to a simple IT architecture, and were not password protected. The online newspaper Zeit says it has found, among other things, the digital meeting room of Ingo Gerhartz, commander of the German Air Force.
The latter's name was cited in March when a secret conversation between high-ranking officers in the German army was leaked. Ingo Gerhartz was among the service members who allegedly did not use required login information on Webex. The interception of this conversation by Russian intelligence services caused a scandal in Germany and embarrassed the country in the face of its allies.
According to Zeit Online, the German military only learned of the security breach after questions from journalists.
The same flaws were exposed by Netzbegrünung, an association of online activists, the media explained.
Interrogated by the AFP, a port to the “Cyberspace and Information” command from the Bundeswehr confirmed that the Army’s Webex installation “presented a failure” and that it was connected, it was a corrigée “in the 24 hours “.
“It was not possible to participate in video conferences without the knowledge of the participants or without authorization; This speaker stressed that it is therefore not possible to extract any secret content from the conferences.
According to the “Zeit Online” website, the “Webex” bodies affiliated with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Economy suffer from the same defects, and the media was able to contact on Saturday the digital meeting rooms of Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck, the two vice presidents. -Advisor.
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