US government, music industry websites taken offline in web attack

The day after several major websites staged a mass blackout over proposed United States anti piracy legislation, namely the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) proposals, members of online activist group Anonymous have knocked US Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI), Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) and Universal Music (UMG)’s websites offline in apparently coordinated web attacks. Several other websites such as BMI.com were also taken offline.

At about 4:15 p.m. EST both www.justice.gov, www.fbi.gov, and www.universalmusic.com went offline. Shortly after 5:00 p.m. the RIAA’s website also went dark. At the time of this report, all three websites are still offline. Just after 6:00 p.m., Universal Music Group shut down their website for “maintenance.” In postings to Twitter, members of Anonymous claim responsibility, saying the attacks are a response to the FBI’s seizure and shutdown of file-sharing website Megaupload, and in protest against the American anti-piracy laws. The group calls this “the largest attack ever by Anonymous” with over 5,600 people participating in the attack.

“The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government and record label sites. Expect us,” stated a message from ‘YourAnonNews’ on Twitter. Another member of Anonymous told RT News that there are more attacks to come.