Animal Lovers Take Heart as Anonymous Avenges a Dog with Website Downtime

Here at Alertra our blog posts are usually about how to keep your websites up and running and how to avoid downtime. We've mentioned Anonymous a few times in the past, using them as an example of why you need to protect your site against DDoS attacks and have it monitored by a quality monitoring service. Today we are going to talk about a website that went down due to the actions of the police department that operates it. Whether you believe in hacktivist attempts or not, you have to admit to the fact that they have become a part of everyday life. This was proven once again as Anonymous struck the Hawthorne, California, police department website. Why was the site the target of an Anonymous attack? It appears that on June 30th, a police officer shot a dog and killed it because the dog wanted to help its owner. The dog was trying to do a good deed and was shot dead for it. Anonymous wasn't too happy about the story apparently.

Anonymous Leaves a Cold Reminder

Whether you agree with the attack on the police department's website or not, there is one thing that we must agree on. If anonymous even gets a hint that justice is being thwarted or rights are being threatened, they will be there. This is reminded in the chilling warning they presented when they launched the attack. Anonymous stated, "Recently you watched a well-known video involving a police officer from Hawthorne that shot a dog dead because the dog wanted to help its owner, that is unacceptable, police of Hawthorne you must know that you are our primary targets, this matter will not remain unresolved. We are Anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, and we do not forget… Expect us…” Not too much later, the police department's site went down. This is a reminder that you never know when a website is going to become a target of a hacktivist or just a hacker in general. Make sure that your site has measures in place to protect it. If not, you may find your site going down due to an unexpected and unprepared for attack.