Ten thousand military reservists of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) have been cut off from central IT systems for over a week. A serious failure occurred at BWI, the national IT service provider, according to the Handelsblatt, which cited a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.
The spokesman informed the newspaper that “disruptions of individual IT systems” were known to the Ministry. He stated that the causes and consequences were “being analyzed according to established processes and reporting channels.” The spokesman explicitly ruled out a cyberattack, confirming that there had been “no data outflows or third-party access,” and attributed the issue to “operational reasons.”
A spokesman for BWI mentioned that the problem stemmed from “interference due to updates to the processing systems.” He told the newspaper that certain datasets are currently inaccessible while the company works to restore access. The BWI spokesman added, “We expect this problem to be resolved shortly.”
According to sources cited by the Handelsblatt within the Bundeswehr ranks, datasets belonging to currently uncalled-up reservists were reportedly deleted during a mass data import. The Bundeswehr maintains approximately 60,000 non-active soldiers. Affected reservists are currently unable to access computers, emails, or the Bundeswehr messenger. Within the military circles, this situation has been described as “a catastrophe” in the event of a defense crisis.
