Megaupload: Anonymous hackers claim to have crashed Justice Department website
Anonymous, the group of activist hackers, claimed to have crashed the Justice Department website on Thursday in retaliation for prosecutors shutting down the popular file-sharing site megaupload.com.
“The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites,” the group wrote on its Twitter account.
A Justice Department spokesman did not confirm whether the agency had suffered a cyber attack, but justice.gov was not loading as of Thursday afternoon.
Anonymous claimed to crash the site of Universal Music, which was also failing to load.
Prosecutors seized megaupload.com on Thursday and charged seven of its employees with criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit racketeering and other charges.
The crackdown came just one day after a massive Web protest against legislation to expand the power of law enforcement and copyright holders to go after infringing websites.