Merkel website hacked ahead of visit by Ukrainian premier

A pro-Russian organisation has claimed responsibility after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s website and several other German government sites were blocked on Wednesday. A pro-Russian organization calling itself CyberBerkut claimed to have blocked the official sites of Merkel and the German Parliament ahead of a visit to Berlin by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. CyberBerkut said Yatsenyuk was in Berlin to borrow money to finance the military campaign against pro-Russians in the east of Ukraine.

We consider this a rather strong attack. Details aren’t yet reliably known, and countermeasures are in place.

Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert

Merkel has been a leading figure in attempts to calm the Ukraine crisis. Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said several government websites were unreachable Wednesday morning because of a “serious attack clearly caused by a multitude of external systems” — what is known as a distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attack. Seibert says the attack is still being analyzed, and he did not say who was believed to be responsible.

Europe Merkel