Federal Audit Office criticizes lack of redundancy in Bundeswehr IT
The Federal Audit Office considers the Bundeswehr IT services to be at risk. This emerges from the authority's comments on budget management.
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The Federal Audit Office has sent observations on budgetary and economic management to the Bundesrat, Bundestag and Federal Government. In it, the authority criticizes, among other things, that "mission-critical IT services" of the Bundeswehr are at risk.
The officials argue that the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) is not ensuring "that it can reliably provide important data for military purposes, even in the event of a crisis." It operates "a data center for mission-critical IT services at only one location – and therefore not georedundant", they continue. By neglecting "the threat situation in the event of cyber attacks, acts of sabotage or natural disasters", the BMVg is jeopardizing the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr.
Bundesrechnungshof: BMVg deviates from BSI specifications
The Ministry of Defense is also "deviating from its own guidelines and those of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)". The spending controllers explain: "As the national cyber security authority, the BSI recommends a minimum distance of 100 km for geo-redundancy – and thus a resilient level of reliability when operating data centers". If "one location fails, the IT services at another location are identically available in the shortest possible time."
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Therefore, the BMVg must "plan reliably how and until when it can ensure the geo-redundant operation of the data center", the officials demand. Otherwise, the Ministry of Defense risks being unable to use IT services for weapon systems in the event of a mission.
The "turnaround special fund" of 100 billion euros and a permanently increased budget for the Bundeswehr also provide several billion euros for the digitalization of the armed forces. Without networking and automation, you cannot achieve information superiority, the Bundeswehr said in March. It is currently unclear whether there are already plans to create redundancy in essential data centers. heise online has sent an inquiry to the Ministry of Defense in this regard.
(dmk)
