berlin top leader german chancellor angela merkel conservative party say website hit thousands cyber attack many russian ip address sunday televise election debate german intelligence government officials often voice concern moscow could seek interfere sept. 24 national election merkel widely expect win fourth term russia repeatedly deny try influence foreign elections julia kloeckner vice chairman merkel christian democratic union cdu say monday political website see 3,000 attack sunday debate merkel social democratic leader martin schulz follow pattern see early hack cdu headquarter state rhineland-palatinate kloeckner party leader also experience massive attack ahead debate say many senders russian ip address kloeckner add german authorities blame spate cyber attack direct german parliament individual lawmakers political party political think-tanks since summer 2015 apt 28 russian hacker group link moscow kloeckner say attack discover form take many recent cyber attack target german politicians institutions use phishing scheme include attachments malicious software germany bsi federal cyber protection agency say aware incidents touch cdu headquarter state spokesman say officials headquarter cdu social democrats junior partner rule coalition say see wave similar attack websites hans-georg maassen head germany bfv domestic intelligence agency tell reporters july berlin expect russia try influence month election say suspect russian president vladimir putin would prefer different german chancellor merkel merkel back continue sanction russia action toward ukraine relations germany russia cool recent years although germany highly dependent energy supply russia spokesman german interior ministry tell news conference monday cyber attack direct political party increase generally recent months decline comment late incidents note bsi work closely politicians party increase security experts say hackers increasingly go subsidiary sit local party branch hope find vulnerabilities tyson barker program director aspen institute deutschland think-tank say attack state-level cdu party infrastructure continue pattern hackers probe potential weak link broad political system main battle front hybrid war u.s. germany likely state berlin washington say barker add think russian intelligence go sit one seem prove wrong merkel ally cite thousands cyber attack russian ip address