TMICY Trend Micro Inc (PK)

BERLIN—Russia is likely to have been behind one of the most aggressive hacking attacks in Germany's history, the German domestic intelligence agency said on Friday, warning that Moscow was currently conducting a series of long-term cybersabotage campaigns that are posing a serious threat to the government, businesses and universities.

A suspected Russian hacker group known among experts as Sofacy, also known as APT28, appears to have conducted a crippling attack on Germany's lower house of parliament last year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, said.

The group was currently leading an aggressive espionage campaign on the West and there were signs that the hackers were being "steered by the Russian state," the BfV said in a statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was unavailable for comment.

Western officials have repeatedly castigated Russia since its intervention in Ukraine for engaging in hybrid warfare—an array of hostile acts that range from military provocations to large-scale propaganda campaigns and cyberattacks.

"Cyberspace is a theater for hybrid warfare. It offers new room for espionage and sabotage," said BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen in the statement.

"Campaigns monitored by the BfV are mainly targeted at collecting information, which means espionage. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence agencies are also showing readiness (to carry out) sabotage."

Mr. Maassen had previously said last year's attacks on the German federal parliament were probably conducted by a foreign spy agency and that Russian spies were capable of such a serious attack, though he hadn't specifically pinned the blame on Moscow.

The attack forced parliament to shut down its computer system for several days last year and to reconfigure its networks after data had been stolen by the hackers.

Security research firm Trend Micro said it had discovered in April this year that Russian hacker group APT28 has started a new hacking attack against the computer system of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.

Other targets of the hacker group have included Russian opposition figures, U.S. military and defense contractors, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to Trend Micro.

In neighboring France, investigators last year concluded that a group of Russian hackers posing as Islamic State militants had launched a cyberattack that crippled French-language TV broadcaster TV5Monde.

The German government's computer networks experienced an average of 15 attacks a day last year, with one attack every other day being traced back to foreign intelligence agencies, according to the government's Federal Office for Information Security.

German security officials are concerned that Russian hackers might have infiltrated several government institutions in the country, while evading detection.

Last month, European defense ministers agreed to create a joint body that would collect information and identify threats from hybrid warfare, a strategy that defense officials have said is also used by Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

Thomas Grove in Moscow also contributed to this article.

Write to Andrea Thomas at andrea.thomas@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 13, 2016 11:25 ET (15:25 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.