The holes in Germany’s Taurus missile leak story

Since the big leak of the German officer’s Taurus missile conversation, German authorities have been trying to explain how it happened. The official position is that the intercept of the conversation about the long-range missile’s use in the Ukraine war happened in Singapore, not Berlin.

There, one of the call’s participants who was attending the Singapore Air Show (February 19-25) returned to his hotel room late at night after attending a party and, maybe having a few drinks, around midnight connected to the discussion using Webex.

The German statement said either it was caused by a cellular phone using the insecure hotel wifi, or it was caused by a cell phone internet connection on a cellular network. The BBCswallowed the Singapore story whole.

The German government put the responsibility on bad communications security while one of the German officers was abroad.

The German Defense Ministry explanation (Bundesministerium der Verteidigung or BMVg) says nothing about particular vulnerabilities of their ministry in Germany, nor whether the others in the conversation were connected by a ministry computer connection or also using cell phones.

BVMg has offices in Berlin and Bonn. But German officers serve also at different military bases in Germany and also are seconded to government ministries while also acting as trainers and inspectors.

Was it likely the conversation was intercepted in Singapore? The Southeast Asian city-state is a good candidate because it is known to have an excellent intelligence service and extensive intercept capabilities.

The Russians, on the other hand, if they are running an intercept capability in Singapore, most likely are primarily focused on the United States and US-Singapore defense