As Anonymous initiated what it said will be the “largest attack ever on government and music industry sites” in response to actions taken by the Justice Department against operators of file sharing site Megaupload.com, downloads of a popular DoS attack tool have spiked.
While the Denial of Service tool known as the “Low Orbit Ion Cannon” (LOIC) was developed by the “good guys” to stress test websites, it has been a favorite tool of Anonymous to take its targets offline by sending a flood of TCP/UDP packets in an attempt to overwhelm a system and make it inaccessible.
Interactions seen on Twitter and IRC, made it clear that the action against MegaUpload has sparked many more individuals to get involved in the online protests and download the LOIC to take part in the attacks.
The chart below shows the number of LOIC downloads from Sourceforge so far for the monthly of January 2012. These figures do not include downloads from other sites and sharing, which increases the number even more.
More background on the takedown of Megaupload.Com and the attacks can be found in our previous coverage here.

For more than 10 years, Mike Lennon has been closely monitoring the threat landscape and analyzing trends in the National Security and enterprise cybersecurity space. In his role at SecurityWeek, he oversees the editorial direction of the publication and is the Director of several leading security industry conferences around the world.
More from Mike Lennon
- Watch Now: Threat Detection and Incident Response Virtual Summit
- Registration Now Open: 2023 ICS Cybersecurity Conference | Atlanta
- NetRise Adds $8 Million in Funding to Grow XIoT Security Platform
- Virtual Event Today: Zero Trust Strategies Summit
- Virtual Event Tomorrow: Zero Trust Strategies Summit
- Watch: How to Build Resilience Against Emerging Cyber Threats
- Video: How to Build Resilience Against Emerging Cyber Threats
- Webinar Today: Understanding Hidden Third-Party Identity Access Risks
Latest News
- In Other News: AI Regulation, Layoffs, US Aerospace Attacks, Post-Quantum Encryption
- Blackpoint Raises $190 Million to Help MSPs Combat Cyber Threats
- Google Introduces SAIF, a Framework for Secure AI Development and Use
- ‘Asylum Ambuscade’ Group Hit Thousands in Cybercrime, Espionage Campaigns
- Evidence Suggests Ransomware Group Knew About MOVEit Zero-Day Since 2021
- SaaS Ransomware Attack Hit Sharepoint Online Without Using a Compromised Endpoint
- Google Cloud Now Offering $1 Million Cryptomining Protection
- Democrats and Republicans Are Skeptical of US Spying Practices, an AP-NORC Poll Finds
