Anonymous brings down Interpol site

Anonymous hackers take down Interpol site

Digital Journal,

29 February, 2012

In the wake of the purported arrest of 25 suspected hackers - members of the hacktivist group Anonymous - revenge has been taken.

According to RT News, the Interpol website is the latest target of Anonymous - the hacktivist group which advocates to protect internet freedom.

interpol.int was unavailable for half an hour today, Wednesday 29 February 2012. The website is now available although loading time is still slow. The hackers allegedly used a "botnet" to down the website.

Anonymous twitter accounts reflected the following tweets: “interpol.int seems to be #TangoDown. We can’t say that this surprises us much," and "Looks like interpol.int is having some traffic issues. Now who would have expected that?”

The revenge was plotted when Interpol announced the arrests of 25 suspected Anonymous hackers, with ages between 17 and 40. They allege that this was due to planned coordinated cyber-attacks on the defence ministry and presidential websites. Other allegedly planned targets were Chile's Endesa electricity company and national library.

The arrests were part of "Operation Unmask", in which police in Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Spain seized mobile phones, computers, credit cards and cash at 40 locations in 15 cities.

Among the arrested are 4 Anonymous hackers who were detained by police in Spain on Tuesday 28 February 2012 after claims that they had conducted attacks on Spanish Policial Parties' web sites.

According to the Spanish National Police, 2 servers in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria had also been blocked as part of Operational Unmask.

Allegedly a manager of Anonymous operations in Spain and Latin America, known as “Thunder” and “Pacotron,” was among those arrested.

The National Police also suspected the 4 hackers of vandalising web sites and conducting DDoS attacks and for publishing sensitive data about police officers assigned to the prime minister's office and Spain's Royal Palace.

Interpol has now been added to Anonymous' already impressive collection of successfully downed websites, including the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security.

In Chile’s capital, a news conference advised that authorities arrested five Chileans and a Colombian suspected hacker. Two of the Chileans are 17-year-old minors.

Authorities in Europe, North America and elsewhere have made many arrests, as Anonymous has increasingly attacked military , law enforcement and intelligence-linked targets in retaliation.

Anonymous has now added Interpol as a notch on its belt of an already impressive collection of successfully downed websites.

A spokesperson for Anonymous has sent the message that the group intends to continue attacks for the “unforeseeable future”.