speech and. giving freedom of choice global news that matters d. w. made for minds. this is. from berlin tonight police say the suspect responsible for one of the country's biggest cyber attacks is a student living at home with his parents the twenty year old telling police that he acted alone and that he was the hacker behind a twitter account which exposed politicians and celebrities details online also. a

far right politician attacked in public police even may have been politically motivated and. to a halt after a drone scare this time it's heathrow airport which suspended flights for an all clear was given just moments ago. it's good to have you with us here in germany a twenty year old student has confessed to stealing the personal data of thousands of public figures including the german chancellor and celebrity now the man who has not been named released a slew of information via twitter exposing private messages pictures even credit card numbers he's the latest high profile hacker to expose the whole singerman

officials cyber security. these men to talk on to how to and so on see here they go does police dog london off we go in for that's their mood. their market standish is to beat off crime force. sixteen million nine the paper mother was because i knew i was keep. going to forment which would take me to force you to have to. look in how to do you on the monday arden ensnare. on an indoor to blunder starting the attack on a string of high profile victims test course consumation now the twenty year old suspect has apparently told police he was behind the message data breach. so as i am with you what's your concerning his motive i hope you understand that at this point we cannot provide you with the final picture to understand but the suspect said he searched for and published data the reason was that he was angry about

specific statements the injured parties made publicly. the hacker is thought to have acted alone he has twitter to publish personal information including phone numbers and email addresses as well as photos and private messages the attack targeted as many as thousand celebrities join a list and politicians including the chancellor i'm gone merkel all the political parties except for the far right f.t. were hit in the. thirties acted very quickly very efficiently and around the clock. i can say with full conviction that our security agencies are guaranteeing the safety of the public and our politicians at all times . despite data being leaked in december in the form of for the advent callender the cyber attack only came to light last week the investigation is continuing and questions about the security of the german

government's digital infrastructure half yet to be answered. joining me now is christoph abos he is head of the cyber security research program for police when eight it's a berlin based think tank because of it's good to have you on the show let us talk a little bit about what we're dealing with here where the suspect is a twenty year old high school student still lives at home with his parents described by police as not a great computer expert. what he must be good at something if he was able to do what he did right i think is that collecting data as far as i'm aware of a lot of these information were out there on the internet at some deep of the web and so if let's about technical expertise and more about commitment and actually the motivation to do harm or if he was still able to get things such as e-mail addresses and fax numbers for i'm going to make over the german chancellor how is

it possible for example maybe some event the chancellor attendants published some information for example planned private e-mail addresses or telephone numbers something like this and. he just found it on the web so that that is not completely impossible so what is then the biggest threat here is if he's not a great computer expert he is very. brilliant in taking the information he does have in putting it out there and social media for the public to see and that scares a lot of people that that's actually true but i think the media. cope well with it because i would say of course the intention is to harm people to do harm to politicians but if we don't talk about the contents of this information about and actually let's say. humiliating aspects of the data and just about like

what happened and what kind of information what people are affected i think as long as we keep this kind of judgment agreement we're fine and the success of those people have. limits but the perception will always be if someone can get the information of high profile people and then publish it on twitter on social media they have violated people's private sphere is right. is there any way then that you as a computer expert is there any way that you can guarantee people that that there is absolute security of course not i wouldn't see any one of those apps that security what you can do is take care of the basics so you propose words like passwords all the passwords and at that you software and of course if some links some condoms received by e-mail or whatever. look strange to you don't click at it try to avoid this kind of content and you should be beyond that aware that as long as you are on

the internet your expose your vulnerable you should keep that in mind that you're that they're dangerous lurking in the deep web and. you should be aware that there's no certainty that you don't get. do you think this is a story more about a country and its prominent people and they are maybe their computer illiteracy and not really a story about a country's weak cyber defenses i would say yes. because for example the attacker did not succeed to penetrate the network of the government it was just private counts of the death that's compromised and in that sense he choose weak targets not strong ones and b. is because said today that no government was affected and in that sense it's not about hearts of a security but about the human factor about people that make mistakes and those attackers exploit these mistakes yeah exactly they know where to find those

mistakes that is for sure chris of cyber security expert because what we appreciate you coming in and i thank you my pleasure. well staying here in germany a far right politician has been seriously injured in an attack in the north of the country frank magnates is the leader of the anti immigration party in braman he says that he was assaulted by three men in the city center on monday evening published this photo of him in the hospital and so that he was beaten unconscious with a piece of wood police suspect the attack was politically motivated. or earlier spoke to one of the leaders alexander. said that the mainstream political parties in germany are partly to blame for this attack because of their efforts to sideline the far right party and its immigration rhetoric in my mind about the democratic discovery it is in this democratic when you call

a democratically elected party undemocratic you're essentially inviting thugs to get violent and that's what happened here it's an escalation of the type of undemocratic behavior we're seen even in the german parliament. it was alexander go in there with the a if the party will. have these political opponents who were quick to condemn this attack the foreign minister of germany heikal must tweeting while it can never be an answer to political arguments regardless of the target or the motive there is no justification for it whatsoever anyone who commits such a crime must be punished and the leader of the social democrats. she had this to say the a.f.d. is a political opponent of our tolerant and peaceful society but those who fight the party with their politicians with violence betray our values and jeopardize our coexistence i strongly condemn the attack on magnets.

well flights have now begun taking off again at london's heathrow airport a short while ago all departing flights were halted after reports that a drone had been seen in the area heathrow was the second busiest airport in the world officials say the police have been at the scene investigating now this flight tracker shows the planes now once again taking off drone sightings at london's gatwick airport you may remember led to flights being grounded for several days last month leaving thousands of passengers stranded for the latest on this let's go to our very own because she's standing by in london good evening to you bigot what more can you tell us about you know yet another drone. incident. yet another will you carry my passengers of course the phrase in you case if you.

will be reminded of. what was prevalent in got for example just before christmas when it was three days that flight those unlucky this is not. it was a very fluid so now i believe. they can get enough to call it include. that they will look into this further into this but it hasn't been confirmed. or somebody not if there's something there it's very powerful how. about another case like this and. how. yeah exactly you know you've mentioned the other airport gatwick you know it was shut down just before christmas you know on the basis of a drone siding yet no one was arrested and no drone was ever found so what can british authorities what can they really do then i mean they can they have anything tangible to show the public. well i mean that was

a cause i mean if you see is also for greatly that was on forty passengers that were stranded for hours and news rapporteur made news and for days in some cases. and the fact that no arrest has been made on a drone find if it predicts a media for i would say also for this is for the post as we'll say for the medically because they were deployed in this instance and dispiritedly trying to find out and get to the bottom of this case now the home office either they were passed and develop a value i pods or guns a lot of these at apple and freeze and say was it really says i love their hats and the bombers you throw out there but they would be going on for many parents a sense but it seems that there is still a lot to be done here and you try you know this is to safeguard the traffic the air traffic for the pizza you know be used to good masala story for us tonight in london you're good thank you well here's some of the other stories now that are

making headlines around the world the united nations says that it has moved the eighteen year old saudi woman who fled her family over the weekend to a safe place rojas mohammad al qa no remains in thailand while the u.n. process is her application for refugee status australia says it will consider a news case if she applies for asylum there. the turkish president. has harshly criticized u.s. national security advisor john bolton he was in on current today this after bolton said that u.s. forces will only withdraw from syria if turkey guarantees the security of kurdish fighters who are views the fighters as terrorists in an apparent snub turkish media say that air to one refused to meet with built. by heavy snowfall and avalanches in austria and germany have claimed at least five lives about one and a half metres of snow have fallen in the northern elp celestion just

a week thousands of tourists are now stranded in villages and more snow is expected this week train services roads have been disrupted authorities are warning the risk of avalanches remains high these forest rangers on patrol in southern bavaria this road has been closed since sunday the reason trees buckling under the weight of snow could thin that those through trees over there are in a critical state if the top comes down on to a car or a pedestrian they're probably dead in many places emergency workers are out trying to minimize the risk. several people have already been killed in weather related accidents in the alps. but locals know full well it's not just the roads that's a dangerous this is the danger is that the masses of snow come down off the roofs

when the kids are playing underneath it so intelligent to play somewhere else. in austria authorities have ramped up the avalanche warnings power lines have been brought down leaving large areas without electricity. we're watching the news live from berlin i'll be back at the top of the hour with more world news followed by the day i've just given. me coaxing germany to learn german. alleged in the. why not learn with him online on your mobile and free to sask form of g.w. in the main course eco street.