Berlin’s new cybersecurity centre battles rising threats

The City of Berlin has opened a new security operations centre (SOC) to strengthen protection against growing cyber threats from hackers, malware and security vulnerabilities.

The city already faces 15 million attempted cyber attacks on its systems per year and is on heightened alert due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Staff at the SOC, which is run by Berlin’s municipal IT company ITDZ, will monitor the city’s networks and data centres “around the clock” and share real-time intelligence with Berlin authorities and agencies. They will collect and analyse around one terabyte of data a day from IT systems such as firewalls, routers, servers and network components and evaluate them according to their criticality.

Marc Böttcher, CEO of ITDZ Berlin, said cybersecurity threats have been increasing in recent years.

“Our experience shows that IT security must be actively managed, continuously adapted and professionally implemented. In the SOC we bundle expertise, state-of-the-art technology and organisation.

He said the approach enables a standardised approach to IT security across the city.

‘Cyber war’

ITDZ processes data from 3.7 million residents and said that personal data is increasingly being targeted by hackers.

“Berliners must be able to trust that their personal data, which they share with public institutions, is secure,” said Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey.

“Threats from cyber attacks are real threats to democracy, especially in the current situation. The war in Ukraine is being waged not only with weapons, but also on the net, far beyond the country’s borders.”

The United States Cyber Infrastructure and Security Agency and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre have also warned of heightened cyber threats due to the war.

In the US, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas was hit by a cybersecurity attack on its data centres over the Easter weekend. Several services have been impacted and a federal investigation is underway into whether any data was compromised.