Killnet threat group uses DDoS against German agencies

February 9, 2023 - TuxCare PR Team

DDoS attacks on German airports, banks, and government agencies have been blamed on Killnet, a self-proclaimed Russian hacktivist group.

DDoS is a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that uses a flood of internet traffic to overwhelm the target, preventing the system from functioning normally. The attacks were aimed “in particular at airport websites,” as well as some “targets in the financial sector” and “the websites of federal and state administrations,” according to the spokesman.

Killnet claimed to be targeting government websites, banks, and airports with a coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaign, a relatively simple attack that works by directing large amounts of internet traffic towards targeted servers in order to bring them down.

The distributed denial-of-service attack was launched in response to Germany’s announcement last week that it would send tanks to Ukraine. These tanks will assist the Ukrainians in repelling Russian invaders, which the Russian hackers did not want.

The attack came after Germany announced that it would supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks, overcoming concerns about sending heavy weaponry that Kyiv sees as critical to defeating Russia’s invasion but Moscow sees as a dangerous provocation.

“Currently, some websites are not accessible. There are currently no indications of direct effects on the respective service and, according to the BSI’s assessment, these are not to be expected if the usual protective measures are taken,” Germany’s BSI federal agency, which oversees information security, said in a statement.

They explained how threat actors create a distributed denial-of-service attack in order to overwhelm the target with a flood of internet traffic. The attackers could use this strategy to prevent the targeted system from functioning properly. The attacks, according to the spokesperson, were specifically directed at airport websites, Germany’s financial sector, and federal and state administration websites.

However, the BSI representative stated that it was difficult to attribute the attacks to the KillNet group because it could have been any other Russian group or pro-Russian hackers.

Killnet has also threatened to use ground weapons against other countries that have backed Kyiv.

The sources for this piece include an article in Darkreading.

Summary