Pierluigi Paganini
January 29, 2023
The Pro-Russia group Killnet is behind the DDoS attacks that last week hit the websites of German airports, administration bodies, and banks. The attacks are the hacktivists’ response to the German government’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the decision to send 14 tanks – and allow other countries to send theirs too (which was restricted until now under export regulations) – at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI) is investigating the attacks.
“The Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI) had “knowledge of DDoS attacks against targets in Germany””, a spokesman told AFP. “The attacks targeted “in particular at the websites of airports”, as well as some “targets in the financial sector” and “the websites of federal and state administrations””
The Killnet group announced the attacks on its Telegram channel, a common practice of this pro-Russia group.
A German government spokesperson explained that the decision to supply the tanks “follows our well-known line of supporting Ukraine to the best of our ability”.
The BSI explained that it is not easy to attribute the attacks to a specific actor, under the umbrella Killnet operates multiple hacktivists.
“They call for action and then a lot of people take part,” the BSI spokesman said. The attacks made “some websites unavailable”, the BSI said, without there being “any indication of direct impacts on (the organisations’) services”.
German intelligence alerted the government about cyberattacks that Russia-linked threat actors can launch against critical infrastructure in the country.
The level of cyber attacks against the country is higher “than ever.”
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