‘Hacktivists’ belonging to Anonymous have targeted the Irish government websites, following Ireland’s decision to restructure its copyright laws.
A government spokesperson admitted to the Irish Times that the Irish Department of Justice and Department of Finance sites were taken down by DDoS attacks on Wednesday.
An official Irish statement said this is not an attempt to extract information from the website but is instead an attempt to stop access to a service.
There was reportedly no damage to the site.
Being dubbed as the Irish SOPA, this legislation could force ISPs to block access to websites, offering illegally shared content.
Junior minister Seán Sherlock, who is responsible for the legislation, is reported to have said that the changes made to the law will just be a confirmation of what the government already believes to be the law.
A Twitter account belonging to the Swedish section of Anonymous said:
"When we attack after office hours, we send a wake up – warning shot."