The websites of the FBI and the Department of Justice came under attack from hackers recently in retaliation for the closing down of the download site Megaupload, whose founders are facing copyright infringement charges in the US. The charges have been brought against the sites founders because according to US prosecutors the copyright holders have accrued over $500m in copyright damages and $175m in criminal proceedings due to use of the download site.
The US Justice Department have said that it was “one of the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the US” and that the website represents “international organised criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works”.
In addition to the attacks on US government sites, attacks have also been carried out on the sites of copyright holders such as Universal music, whose site was temporarily down with the message “The site is under maintenance. Please expect it to be back shortly”.
Anonymous hackers have claimed responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for the shutting down of the Megaupload site on the social networking site, Twitter. A statement there on the @AnonymousWikki account read ”We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. Lulz. The FBI didn’t think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us.”
The websites were attacked by a swarm of Internet traffic, known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, caused when users click, sometimes unknowingly, on links that allow the user’s computer to join in the attack.
Sophos anti-virus software company Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley emphasised the illegality of participating in a DDoS attach and stressed the possibility of participants facing prosecution, whether they knowingly or unwittingly took part. He also said ”I’m not sure if participants in this instance would get away with claiming that they innocently clicked on links by mistake, so make sure you always trust the links you click on, even if they’re shared by a friend on social networking sites”.