According to a statement released by the Federal Cybersecurity Agency (BSI) on Thursday, cyberattacks have been launched against the websites of several important German authorities, including enterprises and airports.
According to a representative for the BSI, the organization has been made aware of “DDoS attacks” (which stands for “denial of service attacks”) that are now being launched against targets in Germany.
“Individual targets in the financial sector” and sites belonging to the federal government were also attacked; nevertheless, there have been no substantial repercussions as of yet.
Targeting a computer system with a Denial of Service attack, also known as a DDoS attack, involves flooding the system with connection requests or messages.
According to the BSI, the hacking website Killnet, which is based in Russia, has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to a claim by the Handelsblatt newspaper group, the strikes were a form of vengeance against Berlin for sanctioning the deployment of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
However, determining with absolute certainty where an assault of this nature originates is “especially challenging for hacking collectives,” according to the BSI spokeswoman.
Hackers “make specific calls to action, and then lots of people participate,” but “it’s hard to prove that authorship can be attributed to them,” he added. “It’s hard to prove that authorship can be attributed to them.”
After two daily newspapers in Stuttgart mentioned blockages on Thursday morning, a BSI official acknowledged to AFP that “certain sites are currently unavailable.”
“At this time, there is no indication that there will be direct repercussions on the services that are involved,” and “according to the opinion of the BSI, there should not be any repercussions expected provided the typical precautionary measures are implemented,”
According to the regional interior ministry, the website of the Baden-Württemberg regional police was also a target of the attack.
The investigation has been turned over to the authorities at this point.
Russia has claimed responsibility for a number of cyberattacks that have been launched against Germany in recent years. One of these attacks occurred in 2015 and involved the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, as well as the office of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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