James Delahunty
16 May 2012 16:49
Notorious BitTorrent website down due to attack.
The website confirmed the DDoS attack on its Facebook page but only said that it "had suspicions" about who is to blame. Early reports suggested that the same Anonymous group responsible for the Virgin Media attack were behind, since the Pirate Bay denounced the attack, but experts say that it's unlikely.
"There will be further attacks, but what's significant about this whole story is that people think that it is the Anonymous attacking a site which is typically a type of site that they defend," said Andre Stewart of Corero Network Security, to BBC News.
"It could be the record labels, or a government somewhere that has had enough of not being able to catch The Pirate Bay, it could be just one person who had rented some cloud power from Amazon and is sitting in a cafe, and is able to launch an attack."
Virgin Media's main website in the UK was forced down for some time last week. A group claimed responsibility for it on Twitter, and hinted that it was revenge for blocking the Pirate Bay. The ISP responded by saying its hands are tied, since the High Court had ordered it (and other UK ISPs) to block the website.