Andreas Feicht, the chief executive of Cologne’s energy supply company Rheinenergie, stresses the need for stronger protection of Germany’s critical infrastructure. He told Focus that the past has seen little regard for safeguarding essential facilities. “We need a different culture” he said, pointing out that anyone can now view the layout of our networks and the key points of our energy supply on the Internet. The federal law on critical infrastructure, which the government has enacted, aims to address this issue.
Feicht calls for enhanced monitoring of critical assets using advanced technologies, including drones and artificial intelligence. He argues that we must prepare better for the response required if an attack succeeds, urging the country to move beyond its comfortable complacency.
Rheinenergie has reported a noticeable rise in hybrid and cyber attacks against its infrastructure. Feicht noted that the company observes thousands of daily network attacks-sometimes several thousand-targeting systems such as supervisory control environments, which are well protected. These threats can come from criminal actors or state-sponsored groups. Recently, the company also detected two drone sightings over its power plants, which are situated within industrial belts where other targets exist. Overall, the number of security‑critical incidents is climbing, but Rheinenergie is actively improving and upgrading its infrastructure to cope with the growing risks.
