Online accounts of the Federal Employment Agency currently only available to a limited extent

Customers are currently unable to change their address or account details in eServices online. This is due to unauthorised third parties having gained access to customers’ personal end devices, and not to the IT systems at the Federal Employment Agency. A “technical maintenance page” has therefore been activated for the area of personal data in all the online accounts of the Federal Employment Agency (BA).

28 Mar 2025 | Presseinfo Nr. 15

Digital applications currently restricted

This situation affects customers who wish to apply for new benefits online, such as Unemployment Benefit. The Federal Employment Agency is therefore temporarily asking customers to record their personal data at their respective office (employment agency or Jobcenter).

We apologise for any inconvenience which is caused by longer processing or waiting times.

Attacks on personal end devices, not on the IT systems of the Federal Employment Agency

Unknown persons recently succeeded in gaining access to some of our customers’ online profiles. The Federal Employment Agency is aware of this and has deactivated the online profiles affected. The access data was accessed via compromised personal end devices, not via the IT systems of the Federal Employment Agency. The number of profiles affected was in the hundreds. The criminals changed the account data pertaining to some of the accounts. The Federal Employment Agency immediately deactivated all the profiles affected and filed criminal charges. As far as we know, the criminals did not succeed in diverting any payments.

To ensure security, the Federal Employment Agency has restricted the possibility to change address details and account details online for all customers as a precautionary measure. Accordingly, a “technical maintenance page” has been activated in the personal data sections of all customers’ online accounts.

The responsible public authorities were immediately notified by the Federal Employment Agency. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI) and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) have also been informed.

Multi-factor authentication to protect personal data

The protection of personal data is of exceptional importance to the Federal Employment Agency. It therefore continues to strongly recommend the use of multi-factor authentication.

In addition to the passkey procedure which was introduced at the beginning of January this year, the Federal Employment Agency has been offering its users the option to log in to the online portal and authenticate themselves with the BundID since last year. The BundID ensures particularly secure access to the digital administrative services of the Federal Employment Agency and the Family Benefits Office by using the eID function and the Elster certificate. 

The time-based one-time password (TOTP) is another alternative.

Information on the BundID is available on the page Die BundID: sicherer Zugang zu allen eServices (the BundID: secure access to all eServices) (available in German).

Information on the Passkey procedure is available on the page Sichere Anmeldung am Konto mit Passkey (Secure account login with Passkey) (available in German).

Information on logging in using the newly introduced TOTP procedure is available on the page Zweiter Faktor für mehr Sicherheit (second factor for more security) (available in German).