The German government has proposed that the EU imposes sanctions on Russian hackers responsible for a large-scale cyberattack on the Bundestag in 2015, the German Press Agency reported on Sunday.
If the proposal sent to member states gets the nod, it will be the first use of an EU cyber sanctions scheme adopted in 2017.
The massive cyber attack on Germany’s lower house of parliament in 2015, forced its computer systems to be shut down for days, with Germany’s domestic intelligence agency accusing Russia’s military intelligence (GRU) for the cyber hacking.
The move was the largest cyber hacking ever carried out against the Bundestag, and was considered as an attempt both of spying and sabotaging.
An estimated 16 gigabytes of data, documents, and emails were stolen from the Bundestag’s network, including thousands of emails from Angela Merkel’s office.
In May, Germany’s attorney general issued an arrest warrant against Russian citizen Dmitry Badin, member of the group APT28, who is under the suspicion of being responsible for the 2015 attack, while the country believes a hacker from GRU was also involved.
Last month, the government “substantiated sanction proposals within the EU framework by presenting a comprehensive package of evidence based on the results of German investigative authorities and on intelligence information as well as publicly available sources,” DW reported.
