Anonymous Hackers Protest against Egyptian Police Violence

The hacker cell of Anonymous has re-newed its DDoS campaign against Egyptian authorities after allegations of police violence against protesters re-emerged.

The campaign has seen Anonymous mount a series of distributed denial of service attacks against several Egyptian government owned websites, including the Egyptian Ministry of Media and Prime Minister's sites.

As well as Anonymous' ongoing support for Egyptian protests, the alleged death of an Anon - the word members use to define themselves - was also cited as a key motivation for the attacks. The Anon was reportedly shot dead by Egyptian police while participating at a protest in Suez.

"One of the /b/ros tweeting on LuLzWarfare was shot dead by Egypt police at protest in Suez. R.I.P. (via @nagoul1)," read a tweet by the AnonyOps Twitter account.

Following the tweet, several reports of successful DDoS attack erupted across the collective's numerous Twitter accounts. "TANGO DOWN : Egyptian Ministry of Media : moinfo.gov.eg By EgyptAnonops Egypt Maspero Tahrir NoSCAF Anonymous EgyMedia" read one of the first from Anontastic.

As well as attacking government sites, like it has for the Occupy movement, Anonymous has continued to report incidents of violence against protesters. "Egypt is getting out of control. Burning field hospitals, closing off supplies from wounded, shooting protesters. DO SOMETHING." Read one tweet from YourAnonNews.

Anonymous has been active in Egypt for some time, having initially voiced its support for the "revolution" when it first began in January. The group later revisited the area with new zeal after footage emerged showing Egyptian armed forces brutally beating a number of female protesters.

Following the footage appearance, a slew of reports emerged across the internet reporting Egyptian government owned websites were going offline. The similarity and close proximity of the outages led to speculation that Anonymous had carried out a fresh batch of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the sites to protest the armed-forces brutality.

DDoS attacks see groups converge on a site, overloading it with requests to the point that it stalls and becomes inactive - the equivalent of spamming a site to death. The tactic is a common tool used by the Anonymous collective in its "protests".

Earlier in 2011 Anonymous had mounted a similar campaign in Turkey, inflicting regular DDoS attacks on Turkish government owned websites to protest the country's internet censorship.

Anonymous' campaign has thus far not escalated past simple DDoS attacks. The group is yet to actually hack into any government owned networks - though given its past campaigns, analysts have been quick to point out this may soon change.

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