Pussy Riot: AntiLeaks Launches DDoS Attack Against Russia Today

Russia Today news channel was forced offline on Friday by a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by the same hacking group that attacked WikiLeaks and live streaming video service Bambuser.

AntiLeaks, which claims no relationship to the US or any security organisations, tweeted "Yes. We are behind the DDoS attack on #RT_com. #FreePussyRiot"

The RT website is now back online. The Kremlin-funded news network featured WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a talk-show host.

Earlier, RT said on Twitter they were "experiencing technical difficulties", before admitting they were under a DDoS attack confirmed by the hosting provider.

The hacking group took credit for the attacks against WikiLeaks, claiming it targeted the website because of Assange's on-going efforts to seek political asylum in Ecuador.

"Assange is the head of a new breed of terrorist," it said in a statement. "We are doing this as a protest against his attempt to escape justice into Ecuador. This would be a catalyst for many more like him to rise up in his place. We will not stop and they will not stop us."

On Thursday, Assange was finally granted political asylum by Ecuador that cited genuine fears of his safety and security.

WikiLeaks was back online following more than a week's worth of massive DDoS attacks on its servers. The site said it had been flooded with 10 gigabits per second of traffic, making it slow and unresponsive.

Cloudfare, a content delivery network that improves website performance and online security, helped WikiLeaks defend against the attack

The attack came after the whistleblowing site dumped documents related to TrapWire, a counterterrorism surveillance system that collects and analyses video from CCTV cameras and number plate readers.

"Yes, Wikileaks revealed a whole bunch of documents on #Trapwire, no, you can't read them easily, because of the current DDoS attack," Wikileaks tweeted.