A group of attackers admitted to hacking the BBC website to show that it is able to target the online activities of the Islamic State (IS) group as well. It has claimed that the recently performed hacking is a "test of its capabilities."
Branding itself as the New World Hacking, the group was able to shut down the oldest and largest national broadcasting organization in the world on New Year's Eve. One of BBC insiders described it as a "disturbed denial of service" attack.
BBC neither confirmed nor denied the said phishing activity, and its press office stated that it will not be giving any comments with regard to the issue. The recent hacking put down the site by flooding it with traffic it cannot manage.
"Who is there to fight off online terrorists? The reason we really targeted [the] BBC is because we wanted to see our actual server power," the New World Hacking stated. It further admitted that the hacking was just a mere test, and it does not have any intentions to prolong the shutdown.
Nicknamed as "Ownz," the group member told BBC News website's Leo Kelion that the New World Hacking was first organized in 2012. The group is composed of 12 individuals with eight men and four women. Ownz further revealed that aside from the BBC attack, they are also actively participating on campaigns against the Ku Klux Klan and are up to tracking IS social media accounts for the #OpParis efforts after the tragic Paris attack in November.
The error on the BBC websites started at 07:00 GMT on Thursday. It did not only targeted the news agency primary site but also its associated services like iPlayer catch-up and iPlayer Radio app.
On the microblogging site Twitter, #BBCDown co-trended with #HappyNewYear on Thursday morning. In response, the broadcasting house officially tweeted on its Twitter account and pointed the problem as a technical issue. It further affirmed readers that it is already in the process of working on the site to make it accessible again.
After about three and a half hours, the site was back, but some pages took a bit longer to load than usual. At midday, BBC announced that its website is back to its normal operation and has extended an apology for the inconvenience.
