Several German government Web sites, including chancellor Angela Merkel's page, were hacked on Wednesday in an attack claimed by a group that is demanding Berlin end support for the Ukrainian government, shortly before those countries' leaders were to meet.
Authorities took counter-measures but failed to halt the attack, which left the sites periodically inaccessible from 9am Greenwich Mean Time, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Screens gave Internet users error messages instead.
It was believed to be the first successful prolonged attack on the government's Web sites, which intelligence agency officials say face about 3 000 such hacker assaults daily.
The head of the BfV domestic intelligence agency said recently that about five of these daily attacks came from foreign intelligence agencies.
Wednesday's hacking, which also knocked out the foreign ministry's Web site, came just before a meeting in Berlin between Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk and German President Joachim Gauck. Yatseniuk will meet Merkel on Thursday.
"Our service provider's data centre is under a severe attack that has apparently been caused by a variety of external systems," Seibert told a news conference, when asked if Ukrainian hackers were responsible.
He said he had no other details. Germany has been a firm supporter of Kiev throughout its confrontation with Russia, which Kiev accuses of aiding armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In a statement on its Web site, a group calling itself CyberBerkut claimed responsibility.
"Berkut" is a reference to the riot squads used by the government of Ukraine's former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted during violent protests last February.
"CyberBerkut has blocked German chancellor and the Bundestag's (lower parliamentary house) Web sites," it said on www.cyber-berkut.org. The claim could not be independently verified.
"We appeal [to] all people and [the] government of Germany to stop financial and political support of criminal regime in Kiev, which unleashed a bloody civil war", it said.
The attack comes after US investigators said they believed North Korea had probably hired hackers to help with a massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures. North Korea blamed the US for the internet outages it suffered soon afterwards.
Seibert said the goal of Wednesday's hackers was evidently to overload servers that administer the government's Web sites such as www.bundeskanzlerin.de, www.bundesregierung.de and www.cvd.bundesregierung.de.
The Web sites, which include general information, speeches and podcasts from the chancellor and general government information, are used by journalists and the public.
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