The hackers demand the release of the 30 activists

Nov 18, 2013 13:45 GMT  ·  By

Anonymous hackers have launched distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against a number of Russian website in protest against the arrests of 30 Greenpeace activists, known as the Arctic 30. The attacks are part of OpGreenRights. 

The list of targeted websites includes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mid.ru), the Embassy of Russia in the US (russianembassy.org), the General Consulate of Russia in the US (ruscon.org), and the one of energy giant Gazprom (gazprom.com).

Currently, the websites appear to be working properly. However, on Sunday, each of them was inaccessible for between one and three hours.

Anonymous hacktivists are unhappy that the Greenpeace activists have been charged with piracy and hooliganism, and that they face up to 15 years in prison. Despite numerous pleas from the international community, Russia doesn’t seem willing to release the 30 individuals.

“Anonymous has therefor decided to respond with Operation Green Rights. The operation is designed to target high level communication assets of the Russian Federation world wide,” the hackers stated.

They warn that if Russia doesn’t release the activists, the attacks will intensify.

In October, around one month after the incident, hacktivists launched a similar attack against government.ru.