Radical Islamist elements or their sympathisers


Two of Britain's leading anti-extremism websites have been targeted and taken down for over a week in a huge, targeted attackTwo of the leading counter-extremism blogs in the United Kingdom have been taken offline for an entire week by a large-scale cyber attack.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but by the very nature of their targeting, the sources are thought to be radical Islamist elements or their sympathisers.

Both Harry's Place and Student Rights suffered "massive" denial of service (DDOS) attacks over the past week - a cyber attack which blasts servers with traffic in order to overload them and effectively knock the websites out. The same tactics have been used against governments and businesses over the past few years, with culprits ranging from the Chinese government to the 'Anonymous' hacker group and its proxies.

A statement posted on the Harry's Place website said: 

"We were taken down by another very nasty DDOS attack. The ferocity of this one was actually quite staggering, so clearly we’re doing something that is getting under someone’s skin, someone with a very a fair amount of resources behind them. That a humble blog like ours – written by a few amateur pundits in their spare time, and relying entirely on donations from readers for its expenses – seems to threaten forces with this sort of virtual fire-power at their disposal is as flattering as it is baffling."

Student Rights, the leading pressure group in the UK for tackling extremism on university campuses said in a statement, "Our website has been the target of a malicious and illegal attack for a prolonged period of time. Our work, as many know, is to challenge extremism including Islamist activity and the far-right. We can only imagine that the attack must have emanated from one of these two groups."

Authorities are currently investigating the attacks.