Chaos in digital radio: authorities fight with massive disorders!

On May 6, 2025, there was a far -reaching disorder in digital radio in Germany, which affected numerous authorities and emergency services. Affected federal states were Bremen, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saarland and Thuringia. In the regions concerned, many emergency services were temporarily forced to avoid alternative means of communication, such as cell phones and analog radio, in order to continue to be able to fulfill their service. The emergency numbers 110 for the police and 112 for the fire brigade and emergency services remained unaffected by the disorder and could continue to be used, as Buten and Binnen reported.

The Bremen police reported two short failures in the afternoon and confirmed that the power disorder continued in the evening. The exact cause remained unclear until evening. The Federal Office for Information Technology (BSI) had no information about a possible cyber attack that could be the cause of the disorder, such as [daily newsp. noted.

nationwide cause still unclear

At 9:00 p.m., the nationwide disorder was reported by the Federal Institute for Digital radio of the authorities and organizations with security tasks (BDBOS). The exact cause is examined for both a possible technical defect and a possible hacker attack. The head of the Berlin police union already described the disorder as a "super-gau" and expressed concerns about the reliability of the digital infrastructure.

The disorder affected local authorities in various federal states, including the Berlin police and fire brigade, which were able to act and were able to use alternative communication channels. The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior was also informed, but had so far not received any specific reports of the police authorities' failures. The BDBOS works with the highest priority on the cause analysis of the disorder.