Anonymous member claims responsibility for GoDaddy attack that took millions of sites offline

11 Sep 2012

Millions of sites registered with GoDaddy.com were knocked offline for four hours yesterday as a result of a massive denial of service attack for which an Anonymous member claims responsibility. GoDaddy says it has restored the majority of sites and claims no data was compromised.

It is understood that an Anonymous member acting alone – going by the handle @AnonymousOwn3r – was responsible for the attack and the motive was GoDaddy’s alleged collusion in censorship activities by not opposing the controversial SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) bills.

The attack is understood to have occurred at around 1.25pm (EST) yesterday. However, GoDaddy is understood to have restored the majority of services by 5.45pm (EST).

“Most customer hosted sites back online. We’re working out the last few kinks for our site and control centers. No customer data compromised,” GoDaddy tweeted early this morning.

The drama began 12 hours ago when @AnonymousOwn3r tweeted: “Hello everyone who wanna me to put 99pc of the global Internet in #tangodown?”

Followed by: “how long do you guys think i should let http://www.godaddy.com/ under my #tangodown ?”

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John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com