Germans Say Chinese State-Backed Hackers Compromised the Federal Office of Cartography and Geodesy in 2021

German authorities have summoned the Chinese ambassador following the discovery that a 2021 cyberattack on a government institution was perpetrated by Chinese hackers, with espionage as the primary goal.

We're used to hearing about hackers going after critical infrastructure, and that's certainly often the case, but it turns out that state-backed hackers also have other targets that might not be as obvious as the rest.

The Federal Government today assigned responsibility for a serious cyberattack against the Federal Office of Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) at the end of 2021 to Chinese state actors and condemned them in the strongest possible terms" said the Federal Ministry of the Interior in a press release. "According to the findings of the security authorities, these Chinese cyber actors infiltrated the BKG 's network for espionage purposes."

This resulted in a rare occurrence in which the Chinese ambassador was called to provide official explanations of the incident. The German authorities didn't just suspect Chinese hackers for the incident; they pointed the finger directly.

"During the investigation, it was determined that a part of the BKG network had been compromised. No other malware was found on the BKG systems. The network was rebuilt in accordance with the BSI's recommendations," the Ministry of the Interior added.

Authorities have not disclosed what kind of data was compromised or collected by the attackers but have warned the Chinese attackers to refrain from such cyberattacks, especially since they threaten the digital sovereignty of Germany and Europe.