Berlin mayor admits sensitive data stolen after cyberattack

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner has admitted that sensitive data was stolen from the city's administration during a cyberattack in August. He said he wanted to contact the affected people “as quickly as possible.”

German media reported that the stolen material included information on risk protection within Berlin's fire service, salary lists, banking details, scans of identity documents, confidential personnel files involving misconduct allegations and disciplinary cases, and files linked to the expansion of the German Chancellery.

The regional public broadcaster RBB reported that hackers published more than one million stolen administrative records on the darknet on Friday. They had demanded a ransom from Berlin. German media said the attackers may have been the Rhysida hacking group, although that attribution has not been officially confirmed.

Wegner again rejected the extortion attempt in an interview with Bild. “Who can say that, even if we had paid, this data would not already have been elsewhere for a long time?” he said. He argued that nobody could guarantee the data would be deleted after payment.

The attack took place on August 14 and cut several city administrations, including housing and environmental offices, off from the network for a week. Applications for housing benefits and their payments were impossible for several days. The breach occurred one month before Berlin's municipal elections on September 20, but the elections have not been called into question by the attack.

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Who can say that, even if we had paid, this data would not already have been elsewhere for a long time?