Links to video meetings of the German army have been on the Internet for months. As a result, information about the content of those meetings may have leaked, according to research published on Saturday Die Zeit. The leak was only repaired on Friday.
The army only discovered the leak after questions from Die Zeit. The newspaper managed to track down about six thousand links to secret and private meetings, but the researchers assume that many more links were online.
Because the URLs were still online, it was possible Die Zeit easily find out what was discussed, when and sometimes by whom. The passwords also left much to be desired: in one virtual meeting room the password was ‘test’. Researchers from the newspaper managed to enter some online meeting rooms with a few mouse clicks.
The German armed forces said in a response that the “weak spots have been identified and addressed”. Only so-called metadata would have been visible. That’s data about data.
The German armed forces were also embarrassed two months ago when a conversation between top soldiers turned out to have been tapped by Russians. Specialists called for better security of communications.
