Anonymous Targets UK and Swedish Government in Defense of Assange

Operation Free Assange, Anonymous’ latest campaign in support of the WikiLeaks founder, has taken aim at various Swedish and UK government websites knocking at least two of them offline, while defacing another.

Anonymous’ campaign started with a DDoS against the Ministry of Justice in the UK (justice.uk.gov), in response to how the UK has reacted to Julian Assange’s asylum request, which SecurityWeek covered in depth last week. In addition to the Ministry website, Anonymous also targeted the Prime Minister’s office’s domain number10.gov.uk. Both domains were offline for about an hour, before returning to working order.

In addition to the UK targets, Anonymous also defaced a Swedish medical website, primavi.se, leaving a note that explains how the loosely associative group will not abandon Assange, nor the cause of WikiLeaks itself.

“Telling the truth is not a crime. Whistleblowers and hacktivists are not criminals… Hide the truth from us, demonize us and prosecute us, but expect us,” the message said in part. The website was still defaced as of 0700 EST on Tuesday.

In April, Anonymous targeted websites maintained by UK government during Operation Trial at Home, as a way to show their outrage and raise awareness of the fact that the U.K. is sending its citizens to the U.S. to face trial for alleged offences committed on home soil.

At the time, Anonymous launched DDoS attacks against the websites of the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. Later they attempted to target the GCHQ, but that wasn’t a successful attempt.

Operation Free Assange remains active, and we will update this article as the situation develops.

Related: Ecuador Says U.K. is Willing to Start International Incident Over Assange