The damage done by Russia’s hack of Germany’s defence ministry

The GermanNATO defence ministry is not known for being funny. But it did draw chuckles on March 3rd, emailing journalists an official statement by Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, that could only be opened using the baby password 1234.The self-deprecation was appropriate. Three days earlier Russia had leaked the tape of an intercepted call between four senior German air-force officers discussing the militarily critical and politically hyper-sensitive matter of supplying German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Aside from exposing a few (luckily minor) secrets, the leak infuriated allies and reignited a fierce domestic debate over the Taurus issue. Making things worse, it followed shortly after another embarrassing incident, this time in the Red Sea, where a German frigate nearly shot down an American Reaper drone, missing only because two of its interceptor missiles crashed.