Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cyberwarfare

German Intelligence Denies Spying from Embassy in US

BERLIN – The head of German foreign intelligence denied Wednesday that Berlin was carrying out bugging operations from its embassy in the United States in a deepening espionage row.

“No telecommunication-intelligence is conducted from the German embassy in Washington,” Gerhard Schindler, head of the BND agency, was quoted by Zeit online news site as saying.

BERLIN – The head of German foreign intelligence denied Wednesday that Berlin was carrying out bugging operations from its embassy in the United States in a deepening espionage row.

“No telecommunication-intelligence is conducted from the German embassy in Washington,” Gerhard Schindler, head of the BND agency, was quoted by Zeit online news site as saying.

Reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has listened in on the communications of dozens of foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have provoked outrage in Germany and across Europe.

On Tuesday, General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, and the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers that foreign nations were also spying on US leaders.

They dismissed as “completely false” allegations that American spy agencies had swept up data on millions of European phone calls.

They said European media that had made those claims — based on leaks from fugitive analyst Edward Snowden — did not understand the data they were using to make the allegations.

A delegation of German chancellery and intelligence officials is due Wednesday to meet US government representatives in Washington, according to local DPA news agency.

It said Berlin’s medium-term goal was to reach a bilateral accord under which Washington would agree, among other things, not to spy on the government, officials and diplomatic missions.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

In July, Snowden had told German news weekly Der Spiegel that Western states were “in bed” with the NSA in running secret spying partnerships.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

Cyberwarfare

Russian espionage group Nomadic Octopus infiltrated a Tajikistani telecoms provider to spy on 18 entities, including government officials and public service infrastructures.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Cyberwarfare

Several hacker groups have joined in on the Israel-Hamas war that started over the weekend after the militant group launched a major attack.

Application Security

Virtualization technology giant VMware on Tuesday shipped urgent updates to fix a trio of security problems in multiple software products, including a virtual machine...

Cyberwarfare

The war in Ukraine is the first major conflagration between two technologically advanced powers in the age of cyber. It prompts us to question...

Application Security

Fortinet on Monday issued an emergency patch to cover a severe vulnerability in its FortiOS SSL-VPN product, warning that hackers have already exploited the...

Cybercrime

On the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cybersecurity companies summarize the cyber operations they have seen and their impact.