The Anonymous hacking group launched an online strike against government websites in El Salvador on Saturday (Nov. 5), forcing several of them to shut down to prevent the theft of high-ranking officials' personal information.
David Rivas, a presidential spokesman, said the website of the presidency was "suspended" to stop the attack and to prevent Anonymous from accessing the "private information of internal and external users."
Part of "Operation Justice El Salvador," Saturday's attack continues the hacktivist group's recent rash of politically motivated cyberattacks against government sites in Israel, including the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as billionaire chief executive officers like Hugh Grant from Monsanto and Walmart CEO Michael Duke.
According to the AFP, Anonymous first threatened two weeks ago to attack Salvadoran government sites, including those belonging to the presidency, the National Civil Police and the ministries of justice and labor. On Nov. 5, the group made good on its promise, launching a denial-of-service attack and flooding the presidency site with at least 30 million hits, making it inaccessible.
Lisa Vaas from the security firm Sophos believes El Salvador's checkered human rights history brought on the Anonymous attack. She cited death threats against journalists, "thousands of killings and disappearances during the country's 12-year armed conflict, an amnesty law that protects those responsible for the killings, and the murder of two environmental activists who opposed mining projects in the central Cabañas area" as potential reasons Anonymous may have chosen to target El Salvador.
However, the Salvadoran civil war ended nearly 20 years ago, and the former leftist guerrilla party now holds the presidency and has a plurality of seats in the national legislature.
Anonymous has a history of going after governments it feels are abusing citizens' rights; in August, the hacking group defaced Syria's Ministry of Defense website to protest controversial President Bashar al-Assad. Government websites in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain and Iran have all felt Anonymous' wrath in recent months.
Along with the Salvadoran campaign, Anonymous is also currently embroiled in a battle against Los Zetas, a notorious and extremely dangerous Mexican drug cartel whose members the hacking group is trying to unmask.