Landkreis Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Summary

The homepage of Markt Murnau was found to contain unauthorized casino advertisements after a local politician noticed the content and reported it to officials. The municipality stated that it does not place ads on its websites and confirmed that the incident was under investigation with the web‑hosting provider and police notified for possible data espionage and property damage. Officials said the internal network and other online services remained unaffected and that no irregularities were discovered in internal systems, while the site itself is hosted externally and the IT department continues to review security measures in line with the Bavarian E‑Government law.

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Description

On May 11 2022 the Merkur.de article reported that the homepage of the market town of Murnau in the Landkreis Garmisch‑Partenkirchen displayed unexpected casino advertising. CSU‑Fraktionschef Rudolf Utzschneider discovered the altered content, took screenshots and informed the municipal council, urging immediate clarification and advising fellow council members to refrain from accessing any IT systems of the market town until the issue was resolved. He also requested that all council meetings be suspended pending clarification, arguing that council members could not prepare without knowing the risk of accessing the town’s IT systems.

Municipal spokesperson Annika Röttinger stated that the market town does not place advertising on its websites and confirmed that the firm responsible for the town’s online presence had been notified and was investigating the incident. She said that, according to initial checks, no other pages appeared to be affected. The police had been informed and a criminal complaint against unknown parties had been filed under sections 202 and 303 of the Strafgesetzbuch, concerning data espionage and property damage; the Murnau police inspection could not yet provide further details, though Röttinger noted that the unauthorized access likely occurred during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. Röttinger emphasized that the town’s internal network infrastructure was not compromised, that the website is hosted externally, and that the IT department had examined all internal systems without finding irregularities; she added that citizen information systems and online services remained independent and unaffected, allowing residents to continue submitting online applications.

Röttinger further described the town’s IT‑security posture, noting that it assigns high priority to information security, operates under a concept aligned with the Bavarian E‑Government Act, holds the communal IT‑security seal from the Landesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, and regularly trains its IT staff. She acknowledged that it remained unclear how the casino advertisement appeared on the page, mentioning that it was possible the site had been hacked and the content placed externally, and referenced Utzschneider’s questions about what security measures were in place and why they might not have prevented the incident. The article concluded with a note that further updates on the incident could be found on Merkur.de’s Landkreis Garmisch‑Partenkirchen page.

Sources

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