Germany foreign intelligence cyberattacks are being reported more often by businesses, according to a new Bitkom survey. The German digital-industry association said 37% of companies affected by data theft, industrial espionage or sabotage attributed at least one incident in the previous 12 months to a foreign intelligence service.
That is up from 28% in the prior survey and 7% in 2023. The figures describe companies’ own attribution of incidents, rather than public technical evidence proving that a particular Chinese or Russian intelligence service conducted a particular attack.
Bitkom’s representative study surveyed more than 1,000 German companies. The Record reported that the sample comprised 1,003 firms with at least 10 employees.
Which countries did German companies link to cyberattacks?
Among affected companies that identified a country as the source of at least one incident, 52% named China and 49% named Russia, Bitkom said. Nine percent named Iran. Reuters reported that China, Russia and Iran have denied conducting cyberattacks abroad.
Organised crime remained the most commonly identified source, cited by 62% of surveyed companies, according to Reuters. Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst said the division between criminal groups and state services can be hard to draw: intelligence agencies may use criminal networks, while criminals can be tolerated when they select targets consistent with political priorities.
That distinction matters. A company can observe theft, disruption or an intrusion and form an attribution based on the information available to it, but the survey does not independently establish who directed individual operations.
What does the survey say about the threat to German business?
Sinan Selen, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said foreign state actors accounted for an increasing share of cyber espionage and sabotage aimed at German companies, Anadolu Agency reported. He identified the security and defence sector as an especially attractive target area for foreign services.
Bitkom estimated annual damage from data theft, industrial espionage and sabotage at at least €211 billion. That is the association’s estimate, not an audited total of verified losses across the economy.
Only 43% of companies said they felt very well prepared for cyberattacks, down from 50% a year earlier, Reuters reported. Firms reported ransomware, phishing, password attacks, distributed-denial-of-service attacks, malware, communications interception and corporate data theft among the attack types they faced.
Cybersecurity awareness training can teach staff to recognise and report suspicious messages, among other safer practices. Completing such training, however, does not demonstrate that an organisation can prevent an attack or that a breach has been avoided.
This story draws on original reporting from The Record.
