"There is a big threat to hospitals," he was cited as saying by the newspaper.
Schoenbohm noted that German hospitals have already been targeted by cybercriminals in the past. At the same time, he agreed with another BSI expert, Dirk Haeger, that there are no similar safety concerns regarding such critical facilities, as German nuclear power plants, Die Zeit said.
According to Schoenbohm, the BSI developed a set of standards together with the professional community to boost cybersecurity in German hospitals, but their implementation will take time.
On 14 May, Ireland's health services (HSE) announced that its IT systems had been shut down following a hacker attack. The hackers claimed to have gained access to the HSE network and demanded a $20 million ransom for over 700 gigabytes of personal data, which the Irish authorities refused to pay.
The US has also experienced several hacker attacks on important infrastructure facilities over the past six months, including the most recent Colonial Pipeline incident.