National Cyber Security Conference: BND warns against using doubt as a weapon

Contents

Presentations and discussions on the first day of the twelfth "Potsdam Conference on National Cyber Security" have already shown that many experts do not exactly consider the security situation in the digital space to be good. On Thursday, the conference concluded with interesting details – and some perplexity.

The consequences of Russia's major attack on Ukraine are keeping the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) very busy. "Although the damage and effects have so far been manageable, we should not make the mistake of underestimating the threat to the West," warned BND Vice President Dag Baehr on Thursday at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam-Griebnitzsee. For the foreign intelligence agency based in Berlin and Pullach near Munich, there is a whole range of findings.

Baehr, who like many BND employees comes from the Bundeswehr and holds the rank of Major General there, explained that the activities of other services are particularly important in addition to the findings on sanctions evasion. The government-affiliated APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats) can be observed taking an interest in the Ukrainian applications, which they use to create situation reports from drone data, classic target data and other sources using machine learning. This is also an fascinating target for China, for example, which is also gathering intelligence in Russia.

The increased interest in Ukraine's digital military capabilities extends well beyond the country's borders, reported Baehr: drone overflights over Western military training grounds, where Ukrainian soldiers are being trained, are complemented by attacks in digital space.

BND sees Putin trips as a sign of functioning tech sanctions

For the BND Vice President, there are other noteworthy developments: The travel activity of Russian President Vladimir Putin is a sign to him that the substitution of Western technology in Russia is failing, meaning that sanctions evasion is not working despite the falsification of customs documents, for example. The Russian president first traveled to North Korea and is now traveling on to Vietnam.

Baehr sees Russia as a current danger in terms of cyberattacks on targets in Germany, but not as the main threat in the medium term. Like other players on the eve of the Potsdam conference, China is more relevant for him in the long term: "In contrast to Russia, I would consider China's approach to be more long-term and more planned," said BND Vice President Dag Baehr. The People's Republic has significantly greater manpower and a strategy geared towards official state goals, and economic and political processes and cyberattacks are coordinated in a more targeted manner. As an "always-high-tech nation", Germany needs to keep an eye on this and protect itself adequately. Chinese attackers are also increasingly using their own concealment networks, which would make it much more difficult to attribute attacks, according to the BND vice president.

Doubt as a weapon of autocrats

The situation is different when it comes to disinformation: the information war is currently being fought exclusively in the West, Baehr explained. Communist and autocratic states had recognized after the end of the Cold War that attractiveness was a decisive factor for system stability – and were now aiming to strengthen fault lines within societies in the West. The BND vice president warned of a "weaponization of doubt", in which doubt is deliberately spread to destabilize. Western societies "with the possible exception of the Nordic and Baltic states" have so far done little to counter Russian influence, Baehr said. However, Russia is preparing for the long term and the networks for disinformation campaigns could be activated in the short term.

His somewhat sad conclusion: "We have very little time for many things that are happening here, but we are taking our time." According to his assessment, speed is crucial. The main insight is that after the events in Ukraine, change must take place at all levels "between the ears in order to achieve progress."