Personal data of hundreds of German politicians hacked

Internal political documents and personal details belonging to hundreds of German politicians were published online, RBB Info radio, a Berlin-area German public broadcaster, reported Friday morning.

The hack targeted members from all of Germany's political parties currently represented in the federal parliament, except for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Politicians at the state level were also affected.

Contact information, private chats and credit card details have been put out on Twitter which belongs to national and local figures from every political party except the AfD.

Data from celebrities and journalists also appear to have been leaked.

It is unclear who was behind the hack, which emerged on Twitter last month in the style of an advent calendar.

The true extent of damage caused by the leak is not yet known.

Although no politically sensitive documents appear to have been published, the sheer extent of personal data leaked suggests the consequences could be considerable, says RBB reporter Michael Götschenberg, who researched the hack.

The document leak was first discovered Thursday evening, the broadcaster reported. However, the documents had apparently been posted online as early as December 2018 over a Hamburg-based Twitter account that released them in an Advent-calendar style. The Twitter account describes itself with labels such as security research, artist and satireid.

German politicians have been targeted before.

Russia was accused of a series of cyber attacks that stole data from computers in the German parliament, the Bundestag, in 2015.

Last year the German government's IT network came under a fresh attack amid reports that Russian hackers were also to blame.