(Central News Agency) The websites of German airports, public administrations and financial institutions were hit by a cyberattack called by the Russian hacker group Killnet, authorities said today.

The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has been informed of a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack against targets in Germany, a spokesman told AFP.

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The attack "particularly targeted airport websites" and some "financial sector targets", as well as "websites of federal and state-level administrations", the spokesman said.

According to the "Business Daily" (Handelsblatt), Killnet's previous call for the attack was in response to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's announcement yesterday that Germany would send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine to help the Ukrainian army repel the Russian invasion. .

However, a spokesman for the Federal Information Security Office said it was "particularly difficult" to attribute today's attack directly to Killnet. "They called for action and many people took part in it."

The attack resulted in "a number of websites becoming inaccessible", but there was no "any indication that services (of these agencies) were directly affected".

Attacks against public administrations were "largely repulsed without serious consequences," the BIS also said.

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