FBI Knocks Down 40 Doors in Probe of Pro-WikiLeaks Attackers
January 28th, 2011Via: Wired:
The FBI has joined in the hunt for those who participated in the retaliation attacks against companies that cut off services to Wikileaks, executing more than 40 search warrants across the United States on Thursday, the bureau announced.
In what seem to be timed raids, British police arrested five men Thursday morning who allegedly participated in the Anonymous group’s denial of service attacks on Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amazon in mid-December. Anonymous was seeking to bring attention to — and punish — the financial-service companies’ decisions to prohibit donations to Wikileaks. Amazon was targeted after it kicked Wikileaks off its web-hosting service.
The attacks caused no permanent damage, as they simply temporarily overloaded a website with more traffic than the server could handle. They were, for the most part, really nothing more than the cyber equivalent of a campus sit-in.
But the FBI warned it did not see it that way.
“The FBI also is reminding the public that facilitating or conducting a DDoS attack is illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as well as exposing participants to significant civil liability,” the FBI said in a press release. The FBI did not announce any arrests in conjunction with the searches.
Related: Anonymous Running Attacks on Anti-Wikileaks Sites with Low Orbit Ion Cannon
