The gist: Following the rail radio outage, security politicians are calling for a statutory ban on Chinese components in critical infrastructure to prevent sabotage and espionage.
After a total failure of rail radio at Deutsche Bahn, security politicians are demanding a comprehensive ban on components from Chinese manufacturers in critical infrastructure. The incident highlights existing dependencies and security risks.
On Tuesday, a total outage of the GSM-R rail radio at Deutsche Bahn occurred. The system connects control centers with locomotive drivers – the outage led to a complete shutdown of train traffic nationwide, affecting thousands of passengers. According to DB-InfraGo CEO Philipp Nagl, the cause was an error during maintenance of a core component of the rail radio system. A cyberattack was ruled out.
The incident sparked a debate about the security of electronics from China in Germany’s critical infrastructure. CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter calls for a ban on the import and installation of all components from Chinese manufacturers in the Augsburger Allgemeine, arguing that it is not about individual companies but about the “fundamental unreliability of states like China.” Green politician Konstantin von Notz also warns that the fact that Deutsche Bahn’s systems contain numerous components from countries “that deliberately spy on our critical infrastructure and repeatedly sabotage it” is untenable.
At EU level, the Commission has already responded with a legislative proposal that would allow EU member states to exclude controversial providers of network technology in the future – without explicitly naming companies or countries. This likely addresses Chinese providers such as Huawei and ZTE. The EU Commission has been pushing member states to exclude these manufacturers from their 5G mobile networks for years, but so far with limited success. A binding regulatory framework could change that.
Source: www.it-daily.net · Published June 26, 2026
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