Anonymous takes down Islamic State websites, social media accounts

Hacktivist group “Anonymous”, has claimed responsibility for hacking into, and taking down websites and social media accounts used by the extremist group Islamic States (IS) in response to the Charlie Hebdo account, The Daily Mirror reported.

Through a coordinated effort called Operation ISIS (#OpISIS), the group targeting the huge online presence of IS. The extremist group has hundreds of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

According to a statement issued by the group, they vowed to hunt down IS and expose it.

“We will hunt you, Take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you… From now on, no safe place for you online,” hackers warned IS.

“You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure. We own the internet,” it further added.

The Anonymous is taking down IS websites using distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which bombard ISIS websites with traffic until they go offline from the stress. The hactivist group said they repeatedly reporting social media accounts until they get suspended. They are also using password cracking and phishing to target the extremist group’s online presence.

While identifying themselves as ‘Muslims, Christians, Jews’, the hackers said the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State, are not Muslims.

“Remember – the terrorists that are calling themselves Islamic State (ISIS) are not Muslims!,” the statement added.

Although Anonymous said it has been targeting the militant group since June last year, it had scaled up its attacks after the attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The hackers also published the list Twitter accounts, Google Plus accounts, recruitment websites, Facebook accounts and email addresses that it had targeted so far.