BERLIN, Jan. 9 - Russian hackers have targeted international peace monitors in Ukraine, according to German intelligence, as the Kremlin dismisses claims that it tried to influence the US election as a "witch hunt,” The Telegraph reported.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that a notorious Russian hacking group believed to be linked to the Kremlin was behind an attack on computers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) last month, Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence service said.

He named the group responsible as APT28, another name for Fancy Bear, a group of hackers that has been implicated in the theft of emails from Democratic Party servers in the US.

German intelligence also believes the group was behind a series of cyber attacks on the German parliament in 2015.
The OSCE is responsible for monitoring the ceasefire between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

A spokesman previously acknowledged that its computer servers had come under “serious” attack at the end of last year, but said the OSCE had no idea who was responsible.

"Our analysis showed that the infrastructure of the attack was the same one we know from previous cyber attacks in APT28’s campaign – the same campaign that affected the Bundestag the year before last,” Maassen told Germany’s DPA news agency. “In APT28 there are clues that point to Russian sources.”

APT28, or Advanced Persistent Threat 28, is a name assigned to Fancy Bear by the internet security firm which first uncovered its activities.

Along with the similarly named Cozy Bear, the hacker group was one of two identified in investigations by the US Democratic National Congress (DNC) into the attack on its servers.

US intelligence agencies have published an unclassified report which found that attack was part of a multi-pronged campaign ordered by Vladimir Putin to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

On Monday morning the Kremlin said the allegations amounted to a witch hunt.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no new evidence had been produced to show that Russian officials was involved.

"We are observing a serious fatigue with these accusations," Peskov told reporters on a conference call. "It truly is reminiscent of a witch hunt."

His words echoed a phrase used by Trump himself, who was quoted as saying in an interview with the New York Times on Friday that the storm over Russian hacking was a "political witch hunt."

The BfV has blamed Fancy Bear for a series of cyber attacks on the computer systems of the Bundestag in 2015.
Security officials reportedly believe some 2,240 classified files published by Wikileaks in November were stolen from the Bundestag’s servers in one of the attacks.

The files were being held in connection with a Bundestag inquiry into spying by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on German soil.

There is considerable concern in Germany that Russian hackers may seek to influence general elections in the country in September. (tt/ez)