Tuesday 7, November
Cyber attacks hit KaDeWe and Naturkundemuseum
If we’re honest, KaDeWe is probably one of the only places in Berlin where you would expect to be able to pay by card. Since Friday, however, shoppers at the fancy department store in West Berlin have had to carry around Bargeld like the rest of us due to a cyber attack on the location’s digital network.
Fortunately, no customers’ personal data appears to have been stolen, largely thanks to the security measures the store had in place, with the KaDeWe Group’s IT systems being put into “offline emergency mode” as soon as the attack was detected. According to reporting, the perpetrators of the attack are “Russian cyber criminals”.
KaDeWe is not the only institution currently suffering from a cyber strike. The website of the Naturkundemuseum Berlin has been down for more than a week following a similarly targeted online attack. The museum remains open, though, and visitors can purchase tickets in-person at the box office. Maybe there is a silver lining here for the rest of Berlin: when it comes to digital infrastructure, most of the city remains in the age of the dinosaurs.
