Berlin, August 28th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Berlin’s state government is facing an apparent extortion attempt following a cyberattack on its state network, and city leaders are pushing back hard. Governing Mayor Kai Wegner and Senator for the Interior Iris Spranger issued a joint statement on Friday declaring that Berlin “will not be blackmailed.”
According to the Senate Chancellery, the state’s Criminal Investigation Office (LKA), the public prosecutor’s office and federal security agencies are working “with full intensity” to identify the perpetrators behind the hack on Berlin’s state network. Investigators are also continuing to determine the exact scope and content of the data that was leaked.
The incident has taken a more serious turn. Forensic investigators have now determined that the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment was hit harder than expected. A serious data leak occurred. The Senate Chancellery said it could not rule out that personal or otherwise non-public data was affected. This is a notable shift from earlier assessments.
Disconnected from the Network
Just last week, the Senate had stated that, according to initial findings, no sensitive data had been compromised, with officials describing the leaked material only as freely available geodata already accessible online.
The data breach itself is now believed to have occurred between August 7th and 12th, before the affected departments, Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment, as well as Urban Development, Building and Housing, were disconnected from the state network on August 14th, the day the attack was discovered.
On Friday morning, Wegner, Spranger, Senator for Mobility Ute Bonde and the state’s Chief Digital Officer, Florian Hauer, met with representatives of federal and state security agencies. The full Senate was briefed on the situation at a 2:00 p.m. meeting, after which Wegner and Spranger also informed the leaders of the parliamentary factions in the House of Representatives.
Continuously Updated
State Secretary for Digitalization Florian Hauer said that once reliable findings on the scope and content of the compromised data are available, the relevant parliamentary bodies and authorities will be informed. “We currently assume the attack has been contained”, Hauer said, “but forensic investigations and the scanning of Berlin’s state network are ongoing, and the IT emergency task force remains active for the time being.”
Relevant authorities, including Berlin’s data protection commissioner and Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), are being kept continuously updated on new findings as the investigation proceeds.
