Click on an Anonymous link, and you could be DDoS’ing the US government

Here’s a quick summary of events:

* On Wednesday, thousands of websites participated in an “internet blackout”, protesting against proposed US anti-piracy legislation.

* Yesterday, file-sharing website Megaupload was shut down, and its founders arrested.

The charge? Online piracy alleged to have cost the entertainment industry more than half a billion dollars.

* Overnight, websites belonging to the FBI, Department of Justice, RIAA, MPAA, Universal and others were struck by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

* The loosely-knit collective Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the attacks (which they dupped Operation Megaupload):
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Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.