Government sites survive triple takedown attempt by Anonymous

Taking back Sunday

Anonymous members are also understood to have attempted follow-up attacks on all three targets yesterday afternoon.

However, a Home Office spokesperson told IT Pro earlier today the attacks had not affected its IT systems or services.

"The Government line on this is that our services and systems were unharmed across all sites," he said.

This view was backed by Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security vendor Sophos, who said he saw little evidence of major disruption to Government sites over the weekend.

Hacktivists bear a grudge and will not give up easily

Even so, he doubts this will be enough to discourage Anonymous from pursuing its Saturday night activities.

"I don't think we're likely to see Anonymous getting bored of DDoS attacks, [because] they're very little effort to organise and an easy way for them to get headlines, even if the "best result" (from Anonymous's viewpoint) achieves little more than a bloodied nose," he told IT Pro.

This was a view shared by Bob Tarzey, service director at analyst Quocirca. "In an arms race criminals may well give up and find easier targets, but hacktivists are different because they bear a grudge and will not give up so easily.

"Once victims know they are a target, they need keep up the vigilance [and have] advanced cyber-intelligence capabilities, as well as point security products [in place]," he added.