DDoS attacks hit Australian websites

GLEN ALLEN, Va. - Nov. 26, 2013 - PRLog -- This time Australia is on the target – Distributed Denial of Service attacks are launched over night on the websites for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Reserve Bank of Australia. The reason behind the attacks is claimed to be generated by Indonesians, who are actually annoyed over tapping the phones of high ranking Indonesian government officials, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The DDoS attack close down the AFP's website for the night but the site brought back to work in the morning. A twitter user took responsibility for the DDoS attacks on Australian websites and tweeted using the hashtags #AnonymousIndonesia and #IndonesiaCyberArmy.

"The AFP website is not connected to AFP IT systems. The AFP website is not hosted by AFP ICT infrastructure. It is hosted by a third party hosting provider," the AFP spokesperson said in a statement.

"Activities such as hacking, creating or propagating malicious viruses or participating in DDOS attacks are not harmless fun. They can result in serious long-term consequences for individuals, such as criminal convictions or jail time," he added.

According to reports the RBA's website was a victim of DDoS attack; nonetheless a spokesperson for the RBA denied the attack.

"There has been no outage but the Bank’s website has been experiencing access delays for some users," the spokesperson said.

These attacks come as the result of Australia’s strained relationship with Indonesia in the wake of phone tapping issue. There are different motivations behind each DDoS attack, now it has become integral for the governments and organizations to get DDoS protection services.