Düsseldorf/Cologne (dpa/lnw) - After renewed manipulation of railway signal boxes, the Federal Association for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure is calling for better security precautions. It can no longer be accepted that people can simply break into some very old signal box houses, said the chairman of the association, Holger Berens, on Tuesday in the "Morgenecho" of WDR 5.
Another problem is that a lot of data about the critical infrastructure can be found openly on the Internet. In addition to the railway, this also applies to the water and energy supply. In addition, employees who work there in responsible positions can be found via social networks. The security expert warned that they were often not sufficiently aware of how to behave when asked about technical questions and could become a gateway like criminals. Since thousands of kilometers of rails, like water pipes and energy networks, cannot be comprehensively monitored and secured, the vigilance of their employees is essential for all companies in addition to technical precautions.
On Monday it became known that Deutsche Bahn's systems had again been manipulated by unknown persons. According to the first findings of the police and the public prosecutor's office, the alleged perpetrators are said to have pressed several emergency stop switches in a railway signal box in Leverkusen on Sunday, thereby de-energizing parts of the rail network. As a result, some trains were automatically stopped and there were significant disruptions to rail traffic. The investigators are checking whether there is a connection with other incidents on Sunday at signal boxes in Essen-Kray, Essen-Stadtwald and Schwelm. It is determined because of dangerous interference in rail traffic.
The background is currently unknown. However, the expert from the Federal Association for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure expressed his conviction: "It is certainly not vandalism, but from my point of view a concerted action."
The railway had been the target of saboteurs several times in the past six months. On October 8, for example, unknown persons cut the fiber optic cable of the internal railway mobile network in Herne and Berlin, which is used, among other things, by the engine driver and control centers to communicate with each other. As a result, rail traffic in northern Germany came to a complete standstill for several hours.
