German Bundestag grants BND powers to counter-hack foreign attackers

Germany's Bundestag approved a reform package on Friday allowing the Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, to answer cyberattacks by foreign powers with counterattacks of its own.

The permitted measures range from deleting and manipulating data to disabling entire systems and, if necessary, destroying physical weapons such as drones that could be deployed against Germany. Under certain conditions the agencies may also enter homes and business premises covertly, for example to prepare surveillance operations. They will not be allowed to use force against people. An independent oversight board is to be established to monitor the agencies.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the Christian Social Union said Germany intends to defend itself actively: "their digital infrastructure, their server infrastructure, and their software will also be targeted by us." The Bundestag approved his plans with the votes of the governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Opposition lawmakers specialising in domestic policy warned against granting powers that are too broad.

Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), told his organisation's annual meeting in Berlin this week that hybrid attacks are challenging the "separation principle", under which police conduct investigations while intelligence services gather information, with data exchanged only under strict conditions. He has long objected to that division and has called for expanded police powers and closer cooperation with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency.

The separation principle derives from the Nazi dictatorship, when the Secret State Police operated largely outside judicial constraints, and from the decision of the Allied powers that defeated Germany in World War II that police and intelligence services should remain institutionally separate.

Historian Sönke Neitzel of the University of Potsdam described the principle as "nonsense" in light of today's threat landscape at the BKA's autumn conference, saying it was no longer necessary in a country that has been a constitutional democracy for decades. Dobrindt wants to preserve the principle in its essential form while turning the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the BND into "real intelligence services".

Münch cited two statistics: in the first six months of 2025, crime originating from abroad rose by 24% compared with the same period the previous year, and fewer than 5% of these cases are solved. "The state's promise of security can become fragile," he said.