After hacking attack: AfD checks 24 mailboxes and files a complaint
Data was apparently stolen from ten email accounts, the AfD says. The party calls the attack an assault on democracy and questions the analyses published so far.
Symbolic image · Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jessica Blair / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
Following the hacking attack on email accounts, the AfD has provided details of its scale. A spokesperson told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, according to the dts news agency, that 24 mailboxes had been checked on suspicion of being compromised, and that data had apparently been partly stolen from ten of them. According to the party, the attack was already noticed in September. Since Monday, reports have circulated that more than 420,000 internal emails were published. That figure comes from media reports and has not been confirmed by the party.
A statement by the federal party says: “Although only a few mailboxes were unlawfully copied, large amounts of data were leaked.” A hosting provider had been attacked, it said. The AfD called the attack “illegal and relevant under criminal law” and an attack on the party system and democracy. It said it had reported both the attack and the publication of the data and was in close contact with security authorities. Owners of the affected mailboxes and the data protection officer had been informed.
The party also disputes the significance of the analyses circulated so far, saying they apparently relied on a rudimentary AI analysis matching keywords without context: “It was about keywords, not about context.” According to Euronews, a website published only summaries of individual emails, not the original messages. Who is behind the attack and whether further data has been compromised remains unclear.