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Passwords of members of the state parliament discovered in the Darknet
Published on April 15, 2025
A Swiss IT company found login data of 241 German members of the state parliament in the Darknet.Partly with open legible passwords.Saxony-Anhalt is particularly affected.
Magdeburg (dpa/sa) - Login data from numerous German members of the state parliament have appeared in the Darknet - many of them from MPs from Saxony -Anhalt.As the Swiss IT company Proton announced, it found the access data for numerous applications from 241 German members of the state parliament during a research.Saxony-Anhalt had the highest percentage nationwide of affected accounts, according to the company.
The politicians concerned used their official email addresses, among other things, to create accounts on websites such as Dropbox, LinkedIn or Adobe.
As the ZDF reports, official email addresses were also used by providers who had nothing to do with political work-sometimes even on websites with non-youth-free content.
Also among the affected members of the state parliament from Saxony-Anhalt there are numerous of the email addresses that the MPs have given on the official side of the state parliament as a contact option-in the published data-sometimes with unencrypted passwords.It is unclear how old or current the available access data were.
Registration data for fitness apps, music streaming and social media
The email addresses specified on the state parliament side were also not only used for official concerns for the MPs from Saxony-Anhalt, as research by the German Press Agency shows.With the email addresses and passwords, accounts for fitness or hiking apps, with social media accounts, Microsoft, MySpace and other services are linked.In some cases, the passwords are unencrypted in the data records in the Darknet and are terrifyingly simple - for example as a combination of first and last name.
"I was not aware that my email address can be found on the Darknet," said AfD member of the state parliament Matthias Lieschke.He uses the common methods to protect data from unauthorized use."I am not aware of any illegal access to my data."
A member of the Bundestag from Saxony-Anhalt, whose data can also be found on the Darknet, announced that the so-called two-factor authentication was activated on many devices.A login with a password is not enough, but with each registration a code is also generated that is sent to the cell phone as an SMS.But the fact that the data would find itself there was frightening.
IT company: Only the top of the iceberg
The Darknet is a hidden part of the Internet, which can only be reached with special software and should offer extensive anonymity.The technical functioning of the darknet makes an investigation into the authorities particularly challenging and personnel and time-consuming.Criminals therefore often use it for the trade of drugs, weapons, child pornography or the trade with stolen login data.
"Passwords and email addresses that appear in the Darknet are only the tip of the iceberg," says Eamonn Maguire from the Swiss IT company Proton."They are often only the first step of a much greater risk, in which other, more, more far -reaching data can also get into the wrong hands."When data is published in the Darknet, this means that they can be stolen by hackers and can also be used for malicious purposes in illegal, anonymous online areas.
67 percent of the mail addresses affected by members of the state parliament
Together with the cybersecurity company "Constella Intelligance", Proton searched the Darknet for the MP.The research is part of a larger analysis that the company has already carried out with data from the EU Parliament and several European national parliaments.
With a rate of 67 percent, the members of the state parliament from Saxony-Anhalt were most often affected by far, Proton said.This is well above average and "that there is a significant security risk for the state parliament members".
The company therefore recommends using sensitive professional email addresses only for third-party services if it is absolutely necessary.To do this, it advises to use so -called password managers to manage registration data.
The CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt announced that the office has been working on a comprehensive guideline for information security for several months.This will come into force promptly.