Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Tuesday that it was looking into the theft and subsequent online publication of emails stolen by unidentified hackers during a cyberattack last month.
An AfD spokesperson said the hackers had targeted a hosting provider used by the party and appeared to have copied data from a small number of mostly inactive email accounts.
“The recent online publication of what is presumably a portion of this data is currently being investigated,” the spokesperson said. “A preliminary assessment can only be provided once this investigation has been concluded.”
Although the spokesperson did not say how much data was stolen, an earlier report by the mass-circulation daily Bild put the number of AfD-linked emails published at more than 420,000.
According to Bildthe material published included not only emails sent by party figures such as co-leader Alice Weidel but also bank statements, academic certificates and membership lists.
The website hosting the material was offline by Tuesday afternoon.
However, archived versions showed a volume of 281 gigabytes of data under the headline “The party’s own records, unedited.”
The emails and other materials published have not yet been certified as authentic by any independent body.
The AfD, several state chapters of which have been classified as “confirmed right-wing extremist” by regional branches of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, has been topping recent national opinion polls and made gains in recent state elections.
Some politicians and civil society groups have called for it to be banned, arguing that the party is a threat to democracy, an accusation the party has rejected.
Source: www.dw.com
