Anonymous hackers crash Downing Street & Home Office websites
Hacking collective Anonymous have continued their campaign against the UK government by taking down the official Downing Street website just a day after targeting the Home Office’s online presence.
The group has pledged to mount a weekly attack on British Government domains, forcing them offline by bombarding them with unmanageable volumes of spam traffic – in a campaign dubbed #OpTrialAtHome on Anonymous Twitter feeds.
At the allotted hour a series of tweets were issued asking people to “fire your Laz0rs” with the group announcing “Tango down” shortly thereafter at 9pm on Saturday night.
The site remained offline until Sunday morning.
It follows publication of a poster released by the group championing the cause of Gary McKinnon, Richard O’Dwyer and Christopher Tappin, who are to be extradited from Britain to the US.
A Home Office spokesman said: “This is a public-facing website and no sensitive information is held on it. There is no indication that the site was hacked and other Home Office systems were not affected.
“Measures put in place to protect the website meant that members of the public were unable to access the site intermittently. We will continue to monitor the situation and take measures accordingly.”
Explaining their actions on Twitter Anonymous said: “It’s a digital protest which is different [from] hacking. UK want their government to listen. We can do it as long as it takes.
“Selling your citizens to foreigners is not acceptable! We are Anonymous, we do not forget, we do not forgive.”