HACKERS responsible for a cyber attack which shut down Barnsley Council’s website was part of a campaign to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a group behind the incident.
A tweet from Anonymous Espana, a hacking group, included an image suggesting the group had access to the council’s files and was threatening to leak them as a response to the Australian whistleblower’s arrest last week following seven years’ refuge spent in the Ecudorean embassy in London.
Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno stripped Assange of asylum status last Thursday, allowing UK police to arrest him on after US officials announced he had been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.
However, a spokesperson for the local authority told the Chronicle no residents’ information had not been accessed, lost or stolen for the three-hour period on Tuesday.
The incident was uncovered by the council at about 8.40am after web engineers uncovered abnormal traffic and although it came back online before midday, workers continued to monitor the situation to avoid a repeat situation.
The Chronicle can reveal the council logged the incident with the National Cyber Security Centre and is now working alongside its partners to create more protection for its website in response to the attack.
A council spokesman said: “Barnsley Council has experienced a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS). No customer data has been lost, stolen or accessed by the attack against the council’s website and the council remained fully in control of the situation.
“A DDOS attack is when a hacker overwhelms a website making it unusable for regular users. This type of attack can be extremely disruptive as key services are put out of action.
“We became aware of the issue at approximately 8.40am on Tuesday.
“Having initially believed the issue was not related to a cyber attack, while investigating the issue it became clear that the amount of traffic hitting the council website was massively above normal levels.
“The website was accessible to the public by 11.30am and will continue to be monitored. We have and will continue to work with our partners to get the council website further protected.
“While there was no direct threat to the council, there was a disruption to members of the public accessing services via the website and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
“Barnsley Council has logged the incident with the National Cyber Security Centre.”
Another tweet, from hacking group CyberGhost404, which linked to the crashed Barnsley Council website, said: “Free Assange or chaos is coming for you.”
