According to the Zeit Online newspaper, the experts were unable for days to erase video conference meetings held in the past, some of which were classified because they dealt with subjects such as the Taurus and Meteor missiles or discussions on the subject of the “digital battlefield”.
The visible data relating to these videoconferences included the date, time and duration, the promoter and the topic.
In addition, the connections to the personal meeting rooms of the 248,000 members of the German armed forces were organized according to an identifiable scheme and were also not password-protected.
Thus, for example, “Zeit Online” was able to find, among others, the digital meeting room of Ingo Gerhartz, head of the Air Force.
Gerhatz was one of the participants in the virtual conversation between four German officers about the Taurus missile system, disclosed by the Russian media, which German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the time could have been recorded due to an “individual error” by a participant who had connected from another country without the necessary precautions.
According to their data, the German armed forces hold 45,000 online meetings a month.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) approved Webex in general for use by the authorities in 2019.
According to Zeit Online, the offices of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the ministries of Finance, Research and Economy were affected by this security breach.
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