The Italian website of pharmaceutical giant Bayer has been brought down by hackers affiliated with online activist group Anonymous.

A twitter account associated with hacking group Anonymous said that its Italian division had taken the website down. "Reports just in that #OpItaly brought down Italian sites of the Pharma group Bayer: http://www.bayer.it | Stupid battleship sunk! #AntiSec," it said.

Günter Forneck, a Bayer representative, confirmed increased levels of traffic on the Italian website, saying that users would experience "some restriction at the moment".

"We can confirm an increase in activity on the Italian website over the past few days," Forneck said. "We consider this an illegal interference with our organisation, and will be investigating the source of this attack."

Forneck said that the traffic spike began on Friday, the same day that hacking group LulzSec announced that it would disband.