Berlin's state government confirms an extortion attempt after a phishing click opens the shared Landesnetz; media reporting names Rhysida
Germany's Berlin state administration is the target of a live extortion attempt following a compromise of its Landesnetz, the shared network serving every Senate department and state agency; Der Tagesspiegel and rbb24 both independently date the two affected departments' disconnection from the network, as a containment measure, to 2026-08-14 (translated from German) (Der Tagesspiegel, 2026-08-28; rbb24, 2026-08-29); Berliner Zeitung independently dates the attack becoming publicly known to the same day, stating the departments were disconnected shortly after the incident became known without giving a separate explicit date for the disconnection itself (translated from German) (Berliner Zeitung, 2026-08-28). Contradiction: Security Affairs instead states "Berlin first disclosed the compromise on August 17, isolating" the same two departments, dating both the public disclosure and the network isolation itself three days later than the German-language reporting (Security Affairs, 2026-08-29). This entry follows the 2026-08-14 date as the better-corroborated account (two independent German-language outlets against one English-language aggregator) without resolving the discrepancy. Investigative reporting, not an official technical disclosure, is the first to name a mechanism: the attackers apparently gained access to the Landesnetz through an employee's click on a phishing email (translated from German) (Der Tagesspiegel, 2026-08-28). Forensic investigators found the actual data exfiltration ran between 2026-08-07 and 2026-08-12 (Security Affairs, 2026-08-29), several days before the two affected departments were disconnected.
\nDer Spiegel reported, citing security-industry sources, that the ransomware group Rhysida is behind the attack (heise online, 2026-08-29), an attribution Berlin's Senate administration has declined to confirm, citing investigative-tactical reasons (heise online, 2026-08-29). Rhysida's own dark-web leak site independently posted an entry titled "Berlin, Germany" on 2026-08-28 claiming 5.79 terabytes of data across roughly 1.44 million files, including personal data on 12,076 individuals, more than 5,000 personnel files, plaintext credentials for internal systems, disciplinary and court records, Bundesrat committee protocols, and vulnerability analyses concerning Berlin's water supply (Security Affairs, 2026-08-29). Rhysida demanded 30 Bitcoin, about EUR 2 million (translated from German) (heise online, 2026-08-29), with a one-week ultimatum running from 2026-08-28 (translated from German) (Der Tagesspiegel, 2026-08-28); Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner and Interior Senator Iris Spranger jointly confirmed the extortion attempt and publicly refused to pay, stating the state of Berlin will not submit to extortion (Security Affairs, 2026-08-29). Whether the affected systems were also encrypted, not only exfiltrated, is disputed: one outlet attributes to unnamed "experts" the claim that the Rhysida ransomware was the tool used to both encrypt the systems and steal the data (translated from German) (BornCity, 2026-08-29), while every other cited source describes only data theft and extortion without confirming encryption; this entry does not assert that encryption occurred.
\nCrowdStrike is conducting a forensic investigation across every Senate department and state agency network-wide, an effort Tagesspiegel's sources expect to take several more days (Der Tagesspiegel, 2026-08-28). The department networks disconnected on 2026-08-14 were reconnected on 2026-08-23, but staff report continuing operational degradation days later, with many now working over private internet connections because the corporate network remains impaired; the same reporting flags that workaround as a new, self-inflicted security exposure (Der Tagesspiegel, 2026-08-28). Rhysida has run this extortion pattern against public-sector targets before, including an earlier 2026 claim against the city of Stuttgart (translated from German) (heise online, 2026-08-29); per the joint CISA/FBI/Multi-State ISAC advisory on the group, current as of its 2025-04-30 update, its initial-access techniques include compromising internal VPN access points using valid credentials at organizations lacking multi-factor authentication, and separately deploying Gootloader malware (CISA, 2025-04-30).
\n\nTriage: the confirmed mechanism, a user-driven phishing-email click followed by multi-day bulk data exfiltration, surfaces at the point of delivery in mail-flow and attachment-sandboxing logs, and in network-egress and data-loss-prevention telemetry as a sustained high-volume outbound transfer from a single department's network segment; neither cited source states what executed after the click, so no process-level discriminator is offered here.
The attackers apparently gained access to the Landesnetz through an employee's click on a phishing email.
\u201cThe state of Berlin will not submit to extortion,\u201d Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner and Berlin's interior senator, Iris Spranger, said in a joint statement on Friday, before the ransomware group claimed the attack on their Tor data leak site.
The ransomware group Rhysida claimed responsibility on its leak site August 28, posting an entry titled simply \u201cBerlin, Germany\u201d and claiming 5.79 terabytes of data across roughly 1.44 million files, with personal information on 12,076 individuals allegedly included.
Experts identified the ransomware Rhysida as the tool with which the systems were encrypted and the data stolen.
All files have been uploaded to the publicly accessible area, have fun browsing, data hunters!
Based on what I can see here now, they have put the complete dataset online for everyone to view
Among the data that is viewable is, for example, the application for a new phone, including the signature of the administrative employee.
the ministry points only to the existing constitutional framework.
Until now, the BSI has only been constitutionally permitted to assist the states in defending against serious cyberattacks after an explicit request for administrative assistance. In addition, lengthy bilateral agreements had to be concluded, and these still do not exist with all 16 federal states today.
In addition, data containing information on critical infrastructure, companies and organizations can, depending on the sensitivity of the data, also increase the threat level. (translated from German)
According to Der Tagesspiegel, the data reportedly also includes information on heating plants, fuel depots, backup-power facilities, substations, prisons, waterworks, as well as armaments companies and the Bundeswehr. (translated from German)
The state of Berlin acted grossly negligently and deliberately failed to comply with classified-information protection requirements. (translated from German)
Rhysida's one-week ultimatum expired on 2026-09-04 at roughly 15:35 local time; the Berlin Senate had publicly committed not to pay, and about an hour after the deadline the group published the full stolen dataset on its darknet leak site, replacing the prior partial "auction" listing (heise online, 2026-09-04). Chaos Computer Club spokesperson Joachim Selzer confirmed the complete dataset (including personnel files and documents Selzer describes seeing directly, such as employment references) is now publicly accessible to anyone. Whether the dataset actually contains the drinking-water vulnerability analyses and administration credentials the group had earlier claimed remains unverified by any party this entry cites: Left-party parliamentary faction leader Tobias Schulze stated the Senate now has the opportunity to check whether the prior assumptions about the leaked data are accurate, and should notify affected individuals and organizations as quickly as possible once it does. No further technical root-cause detail beyond the phishing vector has been disclosed by the Senate.
A structural consequence of this incident has now surfaced at the federal level. Asked in a Bundestag inquiry whether, given ongoing severe attacks on states and municipalities, the government would bring forward a constitutional amendment planned earlier by the previous coalition to make the BSI a true central authority for cyber incidents, the Federal Interior Ministry pointed only to the existing constitutional framework (heise online, 2026-09-03). Under that framework, the BSI may assist a state in defending against a serious cyberattack only after that state explicitly requests administrative assistance, and durable bilateral cooperation agreements (a precondition the ministry itself confirms do not yet exist with all 16 federal states) still gate faster support; in practice the BSI has repeatedly had to help first and formalise the legal basis afterward (heise online, 2026-09-03). The ministry points instead to its 14 existing cooperation agreements, its NIS2-transposition-driven expansion of BSI's powers, and increased staffing and budget as sufficient. Green-faction deputy chair Konstantin von Notz, who filed the inquiry, called the reversal "devastating for Germany's IT security" (translated from German) given the still-unfolding fallout from this exact incident. The tension is directly transferable to any federated cyber-incident-response model, including Switzerland's own federal/cantonal/communal cooperation structure with BACS: a central technical authority's ability to help is gated by a request-and-agreement process rather than by its own capacity to act.
\nSeparately, on the incident itself, the Chaos Computer Club's Joachim Selzer identified specific record types now visible in the fully-published leak beyond the personnel-and-employment-reference material already recorded here: an internal request form for a new mobile phone bearing the requesting employee's handwritten signature, which Selzer noted gives a criminal a usable signature sample (heise online, 2026-09-04).
Follow-up reporting establishes for the first time that the scope of the published leak extends well beyond the personal data first identified. Citing Der Tagesspiegel, heise reports the dataset also includes information on district-heating and power plants, fuel depots, backup-power installations, electrical substations, prisons, waterworks, and armaments companies and the Bundeswehr (translated from German) (heise online, 2026-09-06), a materially broader critical-infrastructure and defense-industrial exposure than the water-supply-vulnerability material Rhysida itself had claimed at disclosure.
\nGermany's BSI issued a public warning on 2026-09-05 of an elevated threat level stemming from the leak. The agency states data containing information on critical infrastructure, companies and organizations can, depending on its sensitivity, also increase the threat level (translated from German) (heise online, 2026-09-05), and separately warns of heightened targeted-phishing risk against anyone who had contact with affected individuals or institutions (heise online, 2026-09-05). BSI additionally flags a hack-and-leak risk specific to the political calendar: Berlin holds a state-parliament election on 20 September 2026, and stolen documents can be released or recontextualized at a moment favorable to an attacker (heise online, 2026-09-05). BSI assesses the underlying intrusion itself as financially rather than politically motivated (heise online, 2026-09-05), an assessment attributed to BSI, distinct from opposition politicians' own separately reported alarm about the incident's severity.
\nBerlin's government responded on 2026-09-06 by establishing a dedicated coordination unit ("Steuerungseinheit") in which BSI, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the domestic intelligence service (BfV) jointly review and assess the leaked material, and by starting a risk-based notification process to contact affected citizens, employees and companies by letter or email (heise online, 2026-09-06). Independent IT-security expert Manuel Atug separately stated that the state of Berlin acted grossly negligently and deliberately failed to comply with classified-information protection requirements (translated from German), adding that he had already flagged the same security gaps to Berlin's parliamentary interior committee in 2023 and 2025 (heise online, 2026-09-06). Contradiction: the heise 2026-09-06 timeline separately dates full network reconnection to 2026-08-24, one day later than the 2026-08-23 date this entry's main analysis attributes to Der Tagesspiegel; both dates are carried without resolving the one-day gap.
\nThe same 2026-09-06 report adds a fourth account of the date sequence: its own retrospective timeline states the two affected Senate departments were isolated from the Landesnetz on 2026-08-14 (matching Der Tagesspiegel and Berliner Zeitung's dating of the isolation, not Security Affairs' 2026-08-17) and separately states the Senate chancellery's public press statement disclosing the "ICT incident" followed on 2026-08-17 (translated from German) (heise online, 2026-09-06). This distinguishes network isolation (2026-08-14, now three independent accounts) from the Senate's own formal press disclosure (2026-08-17) as two separate events, but Security Affairs' claim that the isolation itself happened on 2026-08-17 remains an unresolved discrepancy with the German-language reporting, not one this update can settle.