Online activist group Anonymous has reportedly taken down a number of Greece government run websites in response to the people powered uprising in Athens. This latest attack comes just over a week after the ‘hacktivist’ group defaced the Greek Ministry of Justice website.
As you read this, buildings are being set ablaze in central Athens against the approval of an enormously unpopular bill set in place to secure a second bailout from the EU to help avoid national bankruptcy.
Lawmakers voted in favour of the bill that imposes harsh new austerity measures in return for a €130 billion ($171 billion) new bailout agreement to shave €100 billion ($132 billion) off the country’s national debt.
As far as we’re aware, Anonymous have taken down the following sites: a Major TV channel, Prime Minister’s website, National Police, Ministry of Finance and Minister of finance Evangelos Venizelos’ personal site.
This is yet another involvement by Anonymous in international politics and people-powered uprisings. Most recently we saw the organisation hack Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s email server, accessing numerous inboxes of his staffers and revealing the most commonly used password to be “12345.” A timeline of all of Anonymous’ political involvements can be found here.
Whether Anonymous’ acts have any impact outside of raising awareness online and causing some embarrassment to its victims is another discussion all together.
Update 00:08 GMT: According to comments on our Facebook page, banks sites and political parties sites have also been taken down.