Hackers Target UK Intelligence Agency Website

The website of MI5, Britain’s domestic spy service, was briefly taken down by a DDoS attack

The website of UK domestic intelligence agency MI5 was briefly taken offline by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Friday, according to Reuters, citing a BBC report. The culprits have not been named and it is unclear whether they have been identified.

This is not the first time that the infrastructure of the British security services has been compromised. In 2009, a group called Team Elite allegedly infiltrated the MI5 website to log visitors’ identities and retrieve years of their browsing history. While the vulnerability was quickly patched, London was appalled that “potentially highly classified information as the names of secret agents and informants embedded in criminal groups might have been accessible to unknown civilians.

MI5’s website was also reportedly taken offline in 2012 by the hacking group Anonymous as part of an online protest against the UK government’s treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.