Anonymous Attacks RIAA, MPAA, Department of Justice Websites

Although we haven’t heard much from them lately, the hacktivist group Anonymous is claiming credit on Twitter that it has attacked the websites belonging to government agencies as well as the entertainment industry on Thursday.

So far, Anonymous has successfully shuttered the websites belonging to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America, and Universal Music.

On Thursday afternoon, the sites of the former three organizations were completely down, while Universal Music’s page only read “The Site is under maintenance. Please expect it to be back shortly.”

The security breaches come after several arrests this morning concerning Megaupload, a file sharing service company.

They can also be summed down to the sentiments in this AnonDaily tweet:

#StarveTheBeast Trend this. The entertainment industries will see that they can not simply censor us for the basis of profit.

These events also come one day after many websites, including Wikipedia and Reddit, went dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

The group is reportedly also going after WhiteHouse.gov, but that portal was still up and running normally at the time this post was published.

Anonymous also threatened (and successfully thus far) launched mass DDoS attacks against music royalties firm BMI and the U.S. Copyright Office.

Previously responsible for many other notable attacks and inciting protests across the globe last year, Anonymous boasted today’s events as its “the largest on scale attack ever” at a record of 10 sites in 20 minutes.

Based on Anonymous’ Twitter feed, we can also expect attacks the sites of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Viacom, The Regents of the University of California, former U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd (also chairman and CEO of the MPAA), and any organization that has publicly voiced support for SOPA.