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Hacking group announces on Twitter account @OpCharlieHebdo that it has taken down French terror-mongering website

The hacking group Anonymous has announced its first victory in its bid to target jihadists by disabling an extremist website.

Anonymous boasted in a tweet that it had struck ansar-alhaqq.net, a French terror-mongering website, as part of its efforts to protect freedom of speech.

The Twitter account, @OpCharlieHebdo, posted '#TangoDown' and the name of a French website associated with extremists.

The page remains down, diverting to the search engine 'DuckDuckGo'. A Belgium offshoot of the group had previously warned of an attack on all social media sites in a video tribute to the Charlie Hebdo journalists and their families.

In the clip, a figure wearing the group's symbolic Guy Fawkes mask says: "We are declaring war against you, the terrorists."

The figure, who is seated in front of a desk with the hashtag #OpCharlieHebdo (Operation Charlie Hebdo) on the screen, adds that they will close all accounts on social networks related to terrorists in order to avenge those who have been killed.

Over 6.5 million people have viewed the clip since it was uploaded on January 8, with 21,000 people "liking" it.

On Friday, the group published a separate declaration stating: "We are legion. We will not forget. We do not forgive."

The post on Pastebin also included a promise of a "massive" attack. "Expect a massive frontal reaction from us because the struggle for the defence of those freedoms is the foundation of our movement," it read.

The precise method used in the cyber-attack remains unclear, but Anonymous have previously used a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) which floods the website with traffic.

DDoS attacks were attributed to the problems with the PlayStation Network over Christmas.

Source