German Chancellor Angela Merkel has accused the Russia federation of hacking her email accounts, according to her she has “hard evidence” that Russian intelligence operatives hacked her email accounts.
The German Chancellor made the disclosure during a state address on the house parliament, she said;
“cyber-disorientation, the distortion of facts” are all a part of “Russia’s strategy”, adding that: “unfortunately the conclusion I have reached is that this is not new.”
“I can honestly say that it pains me. Every day I try to build a better relationship with Russia and on the other hand there is such hard evidence that Russian forces are doing this,”.
Merkel’s statements follow a report from the German magazine Der Speigel, which cited anonymous sources within the government, claiming Russia’s GRU military intelligence service hacked the German leader’s emails in 2015.
The report said that a supposed Moscow-based hacker using the username “Scaramouche” had hacked into German Parliament email accounts, targeting two of Mrs Merkel’s accounts.
“According to estimates, a total of around 16 gigabytes of data flowed off. This may include thousands of emails from Merkel’s office,” the report claimed.
The report went on to admit, however, that what information the alleged hack had obtained “can no longer be determined with absolute certainty.”
The same group is also thought to have been behind cyber attacks on the 2016 US election.
