Germany is under cyber attack

German officials and technicians are on alert after 18 million email accounts were breached. Authorities have confirmed it is the biggest data theft in the country's history.

The incident comes after only two months from the previous one. In January, the Federal Office for Online Security revealed that 16 million email accounts were compromised by hackers. According to German media, these two incidents are linked together.

Prosecutors are now facing another wave of online fraud. Technicians are looking into how the hackers got hold of information to access so many accounts. All German Internet providers confirmed they were affected by the breach, but at the moment it is still unclear how many accounts were German, and how many had other domains.

Officials from the Federal Office for Online Security confirmed data stolen was current rather than historic. It was the largest cybernetic attack Germany ever faced.