The Justice Department‘s website was shut down Thursday afternoon in what the FBI called a “denial of service attack.“
The hacking group “Anonymous“ claimed responsibility for the attacks on its Twitter account (@YourAnonNews). The attacks are believed to be in response to an indictment and shutdown of the popular file-sharing website Megaupload.
“Anonymous takes down several websites over shutdown of #MegaUpload.com,” the group tweeted at around 7:30 p.m. Eastern time Thursday.
Anonymous also claimed to shut down websites of the Recording Industry Association of America, Universal Music Group, the Motion Picture Association of America, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association.
Anonymous has been vocal against legislation which threatens to tighten regulations on sharing of copy written material on the internet, such as the recently thrown out “Stop Online Piracy Act.”
Looking forward, the group claimed the FBI would be its next target, as it tweeted: “Word has it that FBI.gov is next to go down… will report when it is.”