The Federal Office for Protection of Constitution (BfV) warns against "particularly high-quality cyber attacks" on German media houses. There are also indications of attacks against an organisation in field of chemical weapons research, as Federal office in Cologne has shared. It is probable that or companies that have not yet been known to date have been affected in Germany. Concrete information about attacks is available to BfV according to his own data for period between August 2017 and June 2018, but presumably attacks lasted, it was said. The BfV spoke of an attack with a presumed "intelligence background."

In so-called spear-fishing, hackers use malware to infect malicious software in computers in order to be able to access sensitive data or to sabotage IT systems. In attacks, targeted e-mails with malicious software were sent out, which BfV protection mechanisms of Microsoft programs, explained . So far known are two documents with names "E-Mail-Adressliste_2018. doc" and "Important! New requirements for information security. Edit accounts. doc ".

The constitutionalists suspect "highly skilled and extremely aggressive" hacker grouping with coSandworm of attacks. It is also known under terms Quedagh and BlackEnergy and should be active for at least 2013, according to BfV. It is supposed to have Cyberspionage against NATO, Western government agencies, telecommunications companies and academic institutions, but later also against Ukrainian energy suppliers. Sandworm is currently one of most dangerous cyber-spheres, according to protection of Constitution.