Websites operated by Sweden’s central bank, parliament as well the security service were Friday offline or reported disturbances, the day after hackers had threatened to target them.
Hackers believed to be linked to the group Anonymous on Thursday urged supporters to conduct the so-called denial of service (DDoS) attack after an internet company was searched by Swedish police.
In a video posted on YouTube, an anonymous spokesman had warned of new attacks on Friday, citing that “the raid on PRQ disabled many of our torrent sites. We see this as a crime against freedom-to-information.”
A denial of service attack involves web addresses being hit by a flood of traffic, making the website unaccessible.
The Swedish Prosecution Authority’s website was also offline as was that of the Anti-Piracy Agency formed by Swedish film and computer game producers and distributors that challenge illegal file-sharing.
The search of the internet company, which the prosecution authority named as PeriQ Networks AB, ended Wednesday and several servers were seized. The suspicions centred on suspected copyright infringements.
Similar attacks have hit other sites earlier this week.
Some news reports suggested that PRQ had links with the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay. Four members of the website have in the past been sentenced for copyright infringement. One of its members, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, was last month extradited from Cambodia on suspicion of another case of cyber crime.
Pirate Bay, which allows users to share music and video files, was started in 2003, according to its website. It says it does not store copyrighted or illegal material. – DPA