The Anonymous hacking group has reportedly brought down an Islamic extremist website as revenge for the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Although not officially claimed by the Anonymous, the imagery being displayed correlates with the masked figure traditionally used as a logo by the hacking collective.
The mission has been dubbed #OpCharlieHebdo and hopes to bring justice for last week's Paris attack by targeting Islamic extremists.
The first target was ansar-alhaqq.net, a French jihadist website. The website was down for more than an hour and it is believed that Anonymous carried out a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which floods the victim with fake traffic to make its servers crumble under the requests.
A press release, claiming to be issued by Anonymous, said: "It's obvious that some people don't want, in a free world, this sacrosanct right to express in any way one's opinions. Anonymous has always fought for the freedom of speech, and will never let this right [be] besmirched by obscurantism and mysticism.
"Freedom of speech and opinion is a non-negotiable thing, to tackle it is to attack democracy. Expect a massive frontal reaction from us because the struggle for the defense of those freedoms is the foundation of our movement."
Previously, high-profile websites have been subject to such attacks by Anonymous including Mastercard and PayPal, plus governmental organisations GCHQ, the Home Office and ICO.
Last summer, the group started its campaign against Islamic extremists, taking down Twitter accounts and preventing members communicating to protect the Western World.
-
Bigger salaries, more burnout: Is the CISO role in crisis?In-depth CISOs are more stressed than ever before – but why is this and what can be done?
-
Cheap cyber crime kits can be bought on the dark web for less than $25News Research from NordVPN shows phishing kits are now widely available on the dark web and via messaging apps like Telegram, and are often selling for less than $25.
-
Anonymous hijacks Russian broadcasts with footage of Ukraine warNews The hacking group said it managed to manipulate the broadcasts of three major Russian state-backed media organisations
-
Anonymous hackers flood ISIS Twitter accounts with gay porn after Orlando shootingNews Hacktivists hijack pro-ISIS Twitter accounts in retaliation for Orlando massacre
-
Anonymous takes down Nissan in dolphin culling protestNews The hacker group launched a DDoS attack on the company's global and Japanese websites
-
Anonymous vs ISIS: Hackers claim ISIS twitter accounts linked to DWP IP addresses
News Hacking group find link between unused UK government IP address and ISIS twitter accounts
-
Anonymous hacks ISIS-affiliated Facebook & Twitter accountsNews Hacking collective declares open season on social media accounts linked to Islamic extremists
-
Majority of hidden Tor site requests lead to child abuse imagesNews A study has uncovered 75 per cent of hidden site traffic points to images of child sexual abuse
-
Anonymous targets Ku Klux Klan Twitter accountNews Hacking collective brand white supremacists "terrorists"
-
Anonymous data sharing app Secret arrives on AndroidNews The Android version of Secret features a number of new functions that are not available to iOS users of the app
