How secure is the critical infrastructure in Germany?

No traffic lights, no trains, no ATMs, no internet. The massive power outage at the beginning of this week, particularly in Spain and Portugal, has brought life to a standstill in large parts of the affected countries. The cause is still unclear. Investigations are ongoing to determine whether there was a cyberattack on the infrastructure.

For Germany, the responsible authorities are reassuring: a similar power outage is not to be feared here. "A widespread, long-lasting blackout is unlikely in Germany," the responsible Federal Network Agency announced. The German power grid is designed to be redundant. In concrete terms, this means that if one line fails, another can immediately replace it.

But uncertainty remains. How secure are the energy and water supplies, transportation, communications, health, and financial systems? In other words, the critical infrastructure that is crucial for the functioning of modern societies.

Cyber ​​attacks in Germany

There are disturbing reports almost daily in Germany, too: Last week, the Berlin Senate Chancellery reported that there had been a cyberattack on its electronic service portal. The police were also affected. At the same time, the Berlin newspaper "Taz" reported that there had been a "massive" cyberattack on the newspaper's portal on the day of the federal election on February 23. The website was down for several hours.

And these are just the most recent cases. Attacks on critical infrastructure occur again and again: data cables in the Baltic Sea are damaged, networks are paralyzed, and corporate IT networks are tapped.

Experts estimate that about 80 percent of critical infrastructure in Germany is in private hands, such as industrial companies. But public authorities are also increasingly falling victim to hacker attacks, including the Bundestag and federal ministries in Berlin. These attacks are hitting important democratic institutions.

Lots of money for bridges, schools, roads - and critical infrastructure

The next German government is now planning significant investments in infrastructure, particularly with the new special fund of €500 billion . These investments are to be made over a period of twelve years and will be channeled into areas such as transport, digitalization, and energy infrastructure.

The previous coalition government had already planned to introduce a draft law to strengthen critical infrastructure last year. However, due to the premature collapse of the coalition, the Bundestag was unable to pass it.

Following the power outages in Spain and Portugal, the current Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser (SPD), has called for better protection of critical infrastructure. In an interview with the German editorial network, she said: "We must further strengthen our resilience and resistance. We must reduce critical dependencies and security risks everywhere in the area of ​​critical infrastructure."

This is precisely what the likely next CDU/CSU and SPD government has written into its coalition agreement. In light of growing threats from terrorism, organized crime, hybrid cyberattacks , and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, cybersecurity, civil protection, disaster protection, and civil defense must be strengthened.

For example, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is to be expanded into a central office for cybersecurity. To protect itself from further dependence—for example, on China —it is to develop its own chip and semiconductor technology. In the future, only components manufactured by "trusted states" will be allowed to be installed in critical infrastructure. Small and medium-sized enterprises are to receive preventive consulting services, as they, too, are increasingly affected by cyberattacks.

The European Union also intends to intensify its efforts to protect critical infrastructure. The ProtectEU project was recently presented in Strasbourg.

In their presentation, the responsible security commissioners spoke of growing public uncertainty due to concerns about the threat of terrorism and hybrid threats. "The frequency and sophistication of hostile acts undermining the security of the EU have increased," the strategic plan states.

Malicious actors have significantly expanded their arsenal. Hybrid campaigns such as acts of sabotage against Critical infrastructure, arson, cyberattacks , election interference, manipulation of information from abroad, and artificially created migration pressure are intensifying. EU institutions are not exempt from these attacks. The EU intends to consolidate intelligence on potential attacks at a single hub in the future: the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC). The police authority Europol is to be expanded, and data exchange between member states is to be established.

The common goal of authorities and governments in Europe and Germany: They want to better protect critical infrastructure from attacks in a timely manner.