Dennis Freikamp from the Neue Ruhr Zeitung (NRZ) interviewed an IT specialist from Kurtz Detective Agency Düsseldorf as well as owner Patrick Kurtz regarding the recently publicised hacker attack on the University Hospital Düsseldorf.

Risk of Hacker Attack: "Politics have missed the boat"

A hacker attack on the University Hospital Düsseldorf demonstrates that even hospitals are not protected from attacks. An expert voices criticism.

 

Whether election servers, companies or politicians – institutions and individuals repeatedly fall victim to cyber-attacks. The hacker attack on the University Hospital Düsseldorf demonstrates once again that criminals do not shy away from critical infrastructure. But what are the motives of the hackers? How severe is the financial damage? And how can companies protect themselves from such attacks? We spoke with an IT forensics expert from Kurtz Detective Agency.

What exactly does an IT Forensics expert do? What are their areas of responsibility?

IT forensics experts are engaged by companies when there is a suspicion of hacking. "There is a difference between internal and external perpetrator groups," explains the expert, who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons. The work of an IT forensics expert includes data analysis, data recovery, evidence preservation and the preparation of court-admissible reports. "Commercial forensics specialists usually focus on internal perpetrators. For external cases, preliminary investigations as well as damage and incident documentation are carried out, which generally lead to police investigations."

What do hackers hope to achieve through an attack?

The motives of perpetrators are very diverse. They range from industrial espionage to military or intelligence interests, the expert says. "In some cases, private individuals are behind the attacks." They pursue individual motives. "Mostly financial interests, but sometimes they are also driven by vanity or misdirected competitiveness, attempting to breach even the most secure IT protections or the largest companies," explains the IT forensics expert.

 

The goal of hackers is often to obtain sensitive data, for example to spy on competitor companies or for the "strategic preparation of conflicts within critical infrastructure". Some perpetrators use the information to pressure individuals and companies for ransom. According to the NRW state government, the IT outage at University Hospital Düsseldorf was also due to a hacker attack. Science Minister Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen (non-partisan) stated in parliament on Thursday that the perpetrators withdrew the ransom demand after police contact.

How severe is the economic damage caused by a hacker attack?

"No universally valid figures are known to me," says the expert. "It also depends on the financial resources of the victim." For clients of Kurtz Detective Agency, the damage ranges from a few thousand euros to multi-million figures. "This is primarily determined by the size of the company and the consequential damage." The hacker attack on Lukaskrankenhaus Neuss reportedly caused a total loss of €900,000 to €1 million in February 2016. At that time, a virus had completely shut down the clinic.

How well prepared are companies for such attacks?

More than 20 years after the introduction of the World Wide Web, Angela Merkel said at a press conference with then-US President Barack Obama in 2013: "The internet is new territory for us all." A statement that earned the Chancellor much ridicule and highlighted the "backward nature" of German IT development, according to the IT forensics expert. Germany still has relatively limited expertise in hardware and software manufacturing compared to other industrial nations. "We are dependent on third parties," the expert criticises.

 

On the initiative of the federal government, IT security has at least gained higher importance in critical infrastructure. This includes hospitals, power plants and other facilities whose destruction could significantly impair public welfare. "Most small and medium-sized enterprises, however, rely on default manufacturer settings and shy away from the costs of customised IT security." A change in thinking often only occurs once it is already too late.

Has the risk of being targeted by an attack increased?

"Because the balance between digital and analogue information storage is shifting increasingly towards digital, companies are offering hackers ever larger attack surfaces," explains Patrick Kurtz, owner of Kurtz Detective Agency. The field of activity for criminals is continuously growing, and more young people with relevant IT skills are entering the scene. "Consequently, the risk of IT attacks is increasing both in terms of frequency and financial damage."

How likely is it that perpetrators will be identified?

The success rate for internal perpetrators is very high. "For external perpetrators, the chances are significantly lower, partly because we lack the necessary powers reserved for authorities," says the IT forensics expert. Authorities themselves often lack the necessary competencies. "Politics has missed the boat." German police struggle with insufficient personnel and equipment. Furthermore, international police cooperation only functions effectively on large-scale matters – "when politics is involved and national egoism permits."

 

Everyday IT-related crime is "very profitable" and apparently faces no serious pressure from authorities, the IT forensics expert criticises. "The software company Symantec assumes that organised crime now earns more from internet crime than from drugs."

What can companies do to protect themselves?

"IT experts, as a counterforce to the growing number of attackers, are becoming increasingly important," warns owner Patrick Kurtz. Companies that cannot afford to employ their own IT specialist or maintain an entire IT department should at least seek external assistance. Only in this way can the IT structure be placed "at a solid security level within reasonable limits". "Effort and benefit are of course always subject to cost-benefit considerations and vary greatly depending on the individual risk potential of each company," says Kurtz.

Note

The original article by Dennis Freikamp appeared in the Neue Ruhr Zeitung. Emphasis (bold) and hyperlinks on this page may differ from the original.

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