Anonymous DDoS Attack Targets Nissan

The hacker collective Anonymous has claimed responsibility for a Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) attack against Japanese carmaker Nissan in retaliation for Japan’s hunting of whales and dolphins.

The DDoS attack prompted Nissan to suspend its Japanese and Global websites was suspended on Wednesday. Indeed, the global website was still down as of Thursday 2pm GMT.

Anonymous said it has only targeted Nissan’s customer-facing online presence, and is not looking to leak or attack customer or company data.

Nissan DDoS

One of the Anonymous hackers claimed responsibility in a Tweet, and the group has previously targeted the the websites of the Japanese president and other government departments in protest against the hunting of dolphins in Red Cove and whales in the Antarctic.

It has also launched cyberattacks against Icelandic institutions in November as part of the same OpWhales campaign.

Nissan spokesman Dion Corbett told Bloomberg the company has no stance nor any connection with whale hunting.

“Because of a potential distributed denial of service attack, we are temporarily suspending service on our websites to prevent further risks,” he reportedly said in an emailed statement. “Nissan continuously monitors and takes aggressive steps to ensure the protection of our information systems and all of our data.”

Other Campaigns

Anonymous is not afraid to tackle a range of political issues around the world. It recently blocked access to 300 Thai government websites, in protest of the conduct of Thai police investigating the murder of two British tourists in 2014.

The group also has ongoing campaigns against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and last November it published the details of a thousand alleged KKK sympathisers.

That same month it offered a “noob” guide that shows how people can join its efforts to take down the online presence of Islamic State (ISIS). Anonymous has promised to “hunt down” Islamic State members and supporters, as part of its Operation Paris (‘OpParis’), following the terrorist attacks in Paris.

The hacker collective has even targeted American web services firm CloudFlare, after it was accused of using its CloudFlare CDN (content delivery network) to protect up to 40 Islamic State websites.

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