Russian ‘hacktivists’ briefly knock German web sites offline

BERLIN (Reuters) – Russian activist hackers knocked a number of German web sites offline on Wednesday in response to Berlin’s choice to ship tanks to Ukraine, though Germany’s BSI cyber company mentioned the digital blitz had little tangible impact.

Germany mentioned on Wednesday it will provide its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, overcoming misgivings about sending heavy weaponry that Kyiv sees as essential to defeat Russia’s invasion however Moscow casts as a harmful provocation.

Hacking group Killnet mentioned it was concentrating on authorities web sites, banks and airports with a coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) marketing campaign, a comparatively unsophisticated assault which works by directing excessive volumes of web site visitors in direction of focused servers as a way to knock them offline.

“At present, some web sites aren’t accessible. There are presently no indications of direct results on the respective service and, in line with the BSI’s evaluation, these are to not be anticipated if the same old protecting measures are taken,” the BSI mentioned in a press release.

Some monetary sector targets had additionally been affected, the assertion added.

Killnet is a self-proclaimed Russian “hacktivist” group that has actively focused opponents of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In June, the group claimed accountability for a DDoS assault towards the Lithuanian authorities after the Baltic nation blocked the circulation of products to the Russian area of Kaliningrad.

U.S. cybersecurity agency Mandiant beforehand reported that Killnet is related to one other Russian hacktivist group, Xaknet, which claims it breached quite a few Ukrainian organisations.

Xaknet is probably going linked to Russian intelligence providers, Mandiant mentioned.

Western officers say the Russian authorities is a worldwide chief in hacking and makes use of cyber-espionage towards overseas governments and industries to hunt a aggressive benefit. Nevertheless, Moscow has constantly denied that it carries out hacking operations.

“We’re not conscious of what (Killnet) is. We actually surprise why any group of hackers is related to Russia and never with another European nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov informed reporters throughout a routine briefing on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Alexander Ratz and Andreas Rinke; Extra reporting by James Pearson in London and Christopher Bing in Washington; Modifying by Kirsti Knolle and Tomasz Janowski)