Mumbai: A day after the cyber-attack (DDOS) on BBC’s website, an “Anti IS” group has claimed responsibility of the hit which took down the entire network of the British broadcaster’s websites for several hours.
On Saturday, a group named New World Hackers claimed the responsibility of the attack in a tweet to BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellar-Jones.
Breaking - US-based group calling itself New World Hacking claims it carried out BBC DDoS. Usually targets IS but was "testing" its systems
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) January 2, 2016The hacking group said in another tweet that it was only a DDoS attack test and their ISIS will be their main target.
REMEMBER.. Only a DDoS attack test.. ISIS will be our main target. #BinarySec https://t.co/tNizF8aTDl
— New World News (@NewWorldHacking) January 2, 2016Message to me from New World Hackers on BBC DDoS : "It was only a test, we didn't exactly plan to take it down for multiple hours"
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) January 2, 2016In another tweet to Jones, the group also said: "We are based in the US, but we strive to take down Isis [IS] affiliated websites, also Isis members. We realise sometimes what we do is not always the right choice, but without cyber hackers... who is there to fight off online terrorists? "The reason we really targeted [the] BBC is because we wanted to see our actual server power."
The BBC's online services, including its news website and iPlayer catch-up TV platform, were taken down on Thursday by a large web attack, the British broadcaster reported.
The BBC's sites, which rank only behind Google and Facebook in visitor numbers in Britain, according to Internet analytics firm comScore, were hit from 0700 GMT, with many users receiving an error message rather than content.
The broadcaster itself reported it had been hit by a "distributed denial of service (DDoS)" attack, citing sources within the organization.
DDoS attackers typically target sites by flooding servers with messages from multiple systems so they are unable to respond to legitimate traffic.
Earlier, the BBC press office said it would not confirm or deny it had been hit by an attack.
"We're aware of a technical issue affecting the BBC website and we are working to fix this now," the BBC press office said.
It said at 1145 GMT its sites were back up and operating normally.
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