Pierluigi Paganini November 07, 2015

The Der Spiegel magazine reported German Intelligence Agency BND “systematically spied” on its allies and several international organizations.

In the last months, the German Intelligence has accused the NSA of spying on Government members, including the Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In October, the German authorities have launched a probe into allegations of a new case of US espionage after they have found a laptop infected by the Regin Spyware.

The German Parliament also suffered numerous cyber attacks that spread a highly sophisticated malware inside the network of the Bundestag, the investigators speculate the involvement of nation-state actors, likely Russian state-sponsored hackers.

Victims or victimizers?

The German intelligence agency BND has already been accused of spying on officials at the French foreign ministry and the presidency, as well as the European Commission. The German spies alleged operated on behalf of the NSA.

In April 2015, the Der Spiegel revealed the German intelligence agency BND helped NSA in monitoring European politicians.

“At least since 2008 BND employees fell several times that some of these selectors contrary to the mission profile of the German foreign intelligence – and are not covered by the “Memorandum of Agreement”, which negotiated the Germans and the Americans to jointly combat global terrorism in 2002 had. Instead, the NSA was looking for specific information about over the defense group EADS, Eurocopter and French authorities. The BND did not take the obviously but as an opportunity to review the Selektorenliste systematically.

Only after the unveiling of the NSA scandal in the summer of 2013, a BND department dealt specifically with the NSA search terms.” states the Der Spiegel.

Now the RBB Radio and Spiegel Online are claiming that the BND is also responsible for cyber espionage on its own account on several embassies and administrations of “European states and allies”.

“the BND had systematically spied on ‘allies’ across the world, including on the interior ministries of the United States, Poland, Austria, Denmark and Croatia.” states the Spiegel.

According to the Der Spiegel, the German Secret Service spied on the US delegation at the European Union in Brussels and the UN in New York, the US Treasury, and several embassies in Germany, including those of the US, France, Britain, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and the Vatican.

The German intelligence appears very active, the German spies also spied on the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross and Oxfam.

The unique certainly is that every government is currently conducting covert operations in the cyber space to gather intelligence and spy on allies and adversaries.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –German Intelligence, cyber espionage)