Anonymous says it is behind an attack that brought down the government’s official web site of the Home Office this weekend.
The Hacktivist The group is said to have used a simple denial of service attack,which had first been announced via Twitter on Wednesday, proclaiming it would attack British government websites every Saturday.
After the successful take-down, wrote a triumphant Anonymous on Twitter: “Tango Down - http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk For your draconian surveillance proposalhas told you to # ExpectUs!”
The group also claimed to have flooded the Prime Minister’s Officialnumber10.gov.uk site with requests, although no major power outages have been confirmed.
Double Trouble
The reasons for the attack is believed to be twofold. Anonymous, like most of the civilized world, took exception to the well-reported government plans to monitor its citizens online, e-mail and telephone.
The DDoS attack has also been linked to extradition policies, particularly with regard to the long-running case of Gary McKinnon, the Asperger’s sufferer whoencounter it submitted to the U.S. on hacking charges.
No private data will be lost
A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed the attack, which restricted access tothe Home Office website from 21:00 BST on Saturday night until 05:00 on Sunday morning.
She said: “The Home Office website was the subject of online protests tonight, this is a public for the site and no sensitive information is kept on the ..
“There is no indication that the site was hacked and other Home Office Systemswas not affected.”
She also argued that measures are in place to protect the site against future attacks.
But with knowledge of the planned attack on the public domain since Wednesday, many will wonder why the measures are not introduced before the event.
