Hackers associated with Anonymous apparently caused three UK government websites to crash over the weekend, in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to protest the country’s extradition policies.
The targeted sites include Number10.gov.uk, Homeoffice.gov.uk and Justice.gov.uk.
Calling themselves #OpTrialAtHome on Twitter, the British branch of Anonymous announced early last week on Twitter that the UK government sites could expect “a DDoS every Saturday”.
The hacking uprising from the groups is apparently to protest of the extradition of three British citizens, Gary McKinnon, Christopher Harold Tappin and Richard O’Dwyer, to the US.
On Saturday, 7 April, the Twitter account @Anon_Central announced: “#Anonymous launched a cyberattack on http://www.number10.gov.uk, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk & http://www.justice.gov.uk resulting in multiple TANGO DOWNS.”
On Saturday night, internet users were apparently unable to access the Homeoffice.gov.uk site, as reported by the Guardian. At the time, the site said it was inaccessible to internet users “due to a high volume of traffic”.
The website for 10 Downing Street, Number10.gov.uk, reportedly also went down for a couple of minutes on Saturday night.
