Since Russia invaded Ukraine, IT security experts fear that Putin’s hackers will increasingly attack power plants and hospitals, companies and authorities in Germany. Protecting the digital infrastructure is more important than ever.
It is all the more astonishing with what weak arguments Interior Minister Nacy Faeser (SPD) dismissed the President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schönbohm, and left the authority responsible for IT security in the state and economy without leadership leaves.
The allegations were raised by the satirist Jan Böhmermann in his program “ZDF Magazin Royale”, and they sound serious: Schönbohm did not keep enough distance from Russian secret services, and was even “a danger to cyber security”, it was said, as usual, riotously.
The evidence from the TV makers is not convincing. Yes, Schönbohm founded a dubious lobbying association before he was appointed head of the BSI. However, he has not been active there for years, which is why he can hardly be held responsible for the organization’s connection to a dubious Russian company. And yes, he recently gave a speech there. That was instinctive, but approved by the Ministry of the Interior.
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Neither the satirist nor the Ministry of the Interior have presented any evidence that Schönbohm and his agency maintained insubordinate contacts with Russia – it is still to be examined.
If no further publications follow, that is not enough to dismiss the president of the most important German IT security authority in a crisis situation.
Schönbohm made his authority heard
Especially since Schönbohm has made a name for itself in recent years. When he was appointed in 2016, he was considered the wrong choice in the scene, and the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) accused him of a lack of technical knowledge and insubordinate proximity to the armaments industry.
However, Schönbohm made his authority heard, in politics and in the public. The fact that the BSI has been given more and more jobs, money and skills is due to the importance of IT security, but also to its communication skills.
And he turned out to be a boss who stuck to his professionals and pursued no political agenda. He repeatedly spoke out against security authorities being allowed to use weak points in IT products, for example to eavesdrop on criminals – an idea that the current interior minister also sympathizes with.
Schönbohm has now sought a supervisory procedure himself. It will be interesting to see if anything remains of the allegations.
More: Sabotage against trains and pipelines – how endangered is Germany’s critical infrastructure?