Landesregierung Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Summary

Hackers disrupted the websites of the Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern state government and police, including those hosted from Schwerin, by launching distributed denial‑of‑service attacks that overwhelmed servers with traffic. Officials said the method resembled earlier incidents, and experts from the state’s IT service provider are working to contain further waves while warning that additional attacks and possible service restrictions may occur.

Motives

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TTPs

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Description

On Thursday morning, 23 May 2024, the websites of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state government, state police, and the state intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) became only partially accessible due to a cyber attack. The government in Schwerin announced that various internet sites of these authorities were experiencing limited reachability. Officials noted that the incident resembled attacks that occurred in April and November of the previous year. Initial analyses indicated that the disruption was caused by a distributed denial‑of‑service (DDoS) attack aimed at overloading servers with massive volumes of requests.

The state’s IT service provider, the Datenverarbeitungszentrum (DVZ) M‑V, hosts and maintains the affected websites. According to the article, the affected systems are mainly specialist pages belonging to individual government departments. Specialists are working intensively to contain further attack waves and mitigate the ongoing traffic flood. Authorities warned that additional attacks could follow, potentially leading to further service restrictions.

In November of the previous year, the primary target of a similar attack had been the websites of the state police. Earlier, in April 2023, a series of cyber attacks affecting several German federal states also impacted Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern. The current incident has resulted in limited online access for government, police, and intelligence services, disrupting public information dissemination. Response efforts are ongoing, with experts monitoring traffic and implementing measures to reduce the impact of the DDoS flood.

Sources

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