When the U.S. Department of Justice working in conjunction with New Zealand’s law enforcement agencies took down the popular file-storage and sharing site Megaupload and arrested its executives, they never counted on the Internet-based hacker and protest group, Anonymous, attacking the Department of Justice (DoJ), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Universal Music, and other Websites. And, they certainly didn’t expect for many of these sites to be taken down by this assault.

Anonymous declared this attack was being made in reaction to Megaupload being taken down. The loosely knit group also said that this was its “largest attack ever, crippling government and music industry sites. Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.”

In the event, the White House’s site never went down. At this time, 11:30 AM EST, January 20th, the Universal Music site is still off the air but the others are back up.

How Anonymous took down the DoJ, RIAA, MPAA and Universal Music Websites More >