Germany fires cybersecurity chief over Russia ties | Hacker News Reader

Germany fires cybersecurity chief over Russia ties

bbc.com

44 pointskofejnik11 comments

Let's not forget there is political interest to remove him because he was against some of the spying interests of the BSI.

This was a political move. A setup.

To clarify: the ministry want to place someone supportive of leaving some vulnerabilities "managed" by secret services. Schönborn was strict on security and obligations to close any zerodays known to governments.

However, it is probably not a setup, but the minister just took the opportunity of some drama created by the show. The facts all were known when he we was brought into office. There were previous reports.The "news", him attending the birthday party of his former lobbying outfit with permission of the ministry, could be counted as a setup, but it rather makes the ministry look bad as well.

https://youtu.be/dtZf-A4Qd5k

The late night show mentioned in the article. From a quick glance the auto translated subtitles are somewhat ok, the German ones are auto generated already and contain some errors, and I guess some of the humor gets lost in translation.

I don't really understand the allegation put forward in the programme. I see that Protelion is suspect but why would this reflect on Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland e.V.?

Because Schönbohm is also the founder of Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland e.V. Besides that the name and appearance is confusing, as it seems to be an official government organisation, like the Nationaler Cyber-Sicherheitsrat - which is infact an official organisation.

That all would be ok, if not a couple of huge companies are member of this society. So, if you are in cyber security, this is a little bit too fishy.

> Because Schönbohm is also the founder of Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland e.V.

This would make sense as an answer, if Schönbohm had a connection with Protelion (other than indirectly through CSRD e.V.). Are you asserting that that is the case?

Otherwise, the links in my mind at the moment are:

  KGB — Infotecs — Protelion ... CSRD e.V. — Schönbohm — BSI

where the link "..." is not obviously suspicious (although I'm not saying evidence couldn't be adduced to make it suspicious).

Let me try to summarize, it's indeed a little complex: There is no direct connection. Protelion was member of the CSRD. Schönbohm's friend Dünn (also a founding member and still head of the CSRD) had contact to russia. While Schönbohm left the CSRD and became head of the BSI, he still had contact with the CSRD, he was even advertising it. The problem is, that Protelion offers security software for huge companies for critical infrastructures - allegdly "Made in Germany". And while the BSI issued a warning for Kasperski, after Russia invade Ukraine, this did not happen for Protelion (though the refused a certification request from Protelion, knowing the connection to Russia).

I think they hired and fired him for being the head of a private industry organization that seemed similar? Would a German head of the Fido Alliance have been the head of a German-enough organization and would they have later been fired for Feitian's participation if China were the theme?

The BSI is the german secret service (it's not officially called that) for IT security topics.

all the good hacking stuff happens in the BND tho

See? That's what they tell you.

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