Those persistent hackers, known to us all as LulzSec, have struck again. Less than a week after bringing down the CIA website, BBC News now reports that they have succeeded in bringing down the website of the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
SOCA’s website went down on Monday afternoon (UK time) for an unknown period of time, but by early evening it had been restored, albeit with occasional 404s popping up here and there.
LulzSec tweeted: “Tango down – in the name of #AntiSec”. That hashtag refers to the “Anti-Security” campaign that LulzSec launched yesterday, in which they state:
“We encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word "AntiSec" on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art.”
Today, they added that LulzSec’s “top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments."
It seems that LulzSec used a classic DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on SOCA, overloading its web servers by bombarding it with useless traffic.
It’s worth noting that SOCA is the UK’s primary agency for dealing with cybercrime – today’s security breach will certainly see plenty of red faces there.
Although SOCA has not issued a formal statement at time of writing, Rory Cellan-Jones from BBC News, who was one of the first to break the news on Twitter, also tweeted: “SOCA investigating claims it’s been hacked by @lulzsec”, suggesting that he’s at least received some acknowledgement from within SOCA of the take-down.