Foreign intelligence agencies have stepped up attacks on German businesses, according to a report Wednesday that highlighted threats from China, Russia and Iran.
The biggest single group responsible for data theft, industrial espionage or sabotage remained “organised criminals”, according to the report by the Bitkom federation of digital businesses.
But 37 percent of companies that registered an attack in the past 12 months said it was traced to a foreign intelligence agency.
At a press conference, Bitkom president Ralf Wintergerst called it a “dramatic rise” from 28 percent the previous year and just seven percent in 2023.
The attacks cited in the report included “analogue” incidents such as the theft of IT or communications equipment, but 76 percent of all damage was due to cyberattacks.
Of those who suffered an attack of any kind, 52 percent said they were able to trace at least one incident to China, and 49 percent were able to trace an attack to Russia.
Iran was identified as the source of at least one attack by nine percent of respondents, up from just four percent last year.
The head of BfV domestic intelligence agency, Sinan Selen, said the report “fits seamlessly with the high threat level” Germany is currently facing.
“Both Russia’s ongoing war of aggression and the advancing, covert use of AI in cyberattacks pose major challenges for companies,” he said at the press conference.
“The security and defence industry is a particularly attractive target area for foreign services,” he added.
The report was based on a survey of 1,003 businesses in Germany employing at least 10 people.
Wintergerst also warned that the “number of undetected incidents is getting bigger”.
While 96 percent of businesses surveyed said they thought they had been targeted by an attack, only 67 percent were able to say so with certainty.
The level of uncertainty means that the costs of such attacks are difficult to estimate, with Bitkom saying they could be between 211 billion and 270.8 billion euros ($246 billion to $316 billion).
Wintergerst said foreign intelligence actors were becoming increasingly sophisticated while “less professional actors are getting new opportunities thanks to artificial intelligence“.
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