On Thursday morning, the websites of the government, police, and intelligence services of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a german federal state were partially disrupted. According to a statement from the government in Schwerin, the affected sites have been only partially accessible since then.
State Digitalization Minister Christian Pegel (SPD) stated that the attacks closely resemble similar incidents from April and November of last year. “The initial analyses quickly showed that these are again so-called DDoS attacks, where the servers are overwhelmed by massive requests,” Pegel said. According to the Ministry of the Interior, a Russian group claimed responsibility for the incident last year.
The affected websites are provided and maintained by the Data Processing Center (DVZ) Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the state’s IT service provider. The specialist pages of individual departments are particularly affected. The minister assured that experts are working hard to contain further waves of attacks. However, further attacks and possibly additional disruptions are to be expected in the short term.
Last November, websites of the state police were particularly targeted. Prior to that, in April 2023, cyberattacks had occurred in several federal states, including Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.