The websites of German airports, public administration bodies and financial sector organisations have been hit by cyberattacks instigated by a Russianhacker group, authorities said.

The Federal Cyber Security Authority (BSI) hadknowledge of DDoS attacks against targets in Germany, a spokesman told AFP. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is designed to overwhelm the target with a flood of internet traffic, preventing the system from functioning normally.

The attacks were aimedin particular at the websites of airports, as well as sometargets in the financial sector andthe websites of federal and state administrations, the spokesman said. The attack had beenannounced by the Russian hacker group Killnet, the

BSI spokesman said.

The groups call to arms was in response to Chancellor Olaf Scholzs announcement Wednesday that Germany would send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine to help repel the Russian invasion, according to financial daily Handelsblatt.

Attributing the attacks directly to the hacker group, however, wasparticularly hard, the BSI spokesman said.They call for action and then a lot of people take part, he said. The attacks madesome websites unavailable, the BSI said, without there beingany indication of direct impacts on (the organisations) services.

Attacks on public administrations werelargely repelled with no serious

impacts, the BSI said. The interior ministry for southwestern Baden-Wuerttemberg state acknowledgednationwide DDoS attacks since Wednesday evening against websites, including those of public administration and the regional police.

Germany is on high alert for cyberattacks in the wake of Russias war in Ukraine. The Federal Office for Information Security said in October that the threat level for hacking attacks and other cybercrime activities was higherthan ever.