"Targeted attack": data leak from the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance

On Monday evening, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) warned its members of a possible data leak in a newsletter. This was apparently triggered by inquiries made by the Correctiv editorial team to party members as part of research into party funding. The Correctiv editorial team had "informed the party by email that Correctiv had received personal data", wrote deputy chairwoman Amira Mohamed Ali in the newsletter to supporters. Around 70,000 subscribers to the newsletter are affected.

BSW: "Targeted attack"

A BSW spokesperson confirmed to heise online that the party assumes that this is a targeted attack on its IT infrastructure and that the data of around 70,000 people has been affected. No further details are available yet. "All those potentially affected and the responsible data protection officers have already been informed, and criminal charges have also been filed." The party is calling on Correctiv to "stop using the illegally acquired data to harass our members and supporters with questionnaires".

According to BSW, people affected by the leak were contacted by Correctiv employees. "Unfortunately, it currently looks as if the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance has once again become the target of a cyberattack," the spokesperson explained. "We learned this from victims from the BSW circle, among others, whose email addresses and telephones received dozens of inquiries from the Correctiv research network." In March, BSW confirmed a data leak that is said to have affected around 35,000 people. It is unclear whether there is a connection between the two incidents.

Origin of the data unclear

It remains unclear who Correctiv contacted and where any data used for this purpose actually came from. So far, there are no indications that data from the leak in March ended up at Correctiv. Correctiv has not provided any information on this. When asked by heise online, Correctiv's editorial team merely referred to a previously published article.

The personal data of subscribers to a party newsletter is likely to be subject to the special protection of Article 9 of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This only permits the processing of personal data revealing "political opinions" or "philosophical beliefs" under narrowly defined conditions. A leak or unauthorized processing of this data is considered a serious incident.

(dmk)