Hackers breach German branch of Russian oil producer

Berlin — Germany's Office for Information Security on Monday confirmed media reports that Rosneft Deutschland - the German branch of Russia's largest oil producer Rosneft - reported an IT security breach over the weekend.

The hacker group Anonymous said earlier it had caused major damage in a cyberattack on Rosneft Deutschland.

The chairman of the supervisory board is former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has been in the headlines recently for refusing to disavoy his friend and Russian President Vladimir Putin after the Ukraine invasion, and for allegedly travelling in secret as a mediator to Moscow.

Rosneft Deutschland has not responded to a request for comment on the hacker reports.

According to Anonymous, the attack captured a total of 20 terabytes of data, including data on the backups of the laptops of company executives. It also managed to remotely wipe 59 iPhones and other devices. The hacker group said that the downloaded data would now be sifted through. It does not plan to publish all the data.

"We’re curious to see if we learn anything about Mr Schröder," said the Anonymous post online.

Rosneft Deutschland has stakes in three German oil refineries.

According to its own figures, the firm was responsible for about a quarter of all crude oil imports to Germany in recent years. This makes the company one of Germany's so-called "infrastructure-critical" facilities.