Aug 23, 2011 17:09 GMT  ·  By

A fundraising drive organized by Texas Congressman Ron Paul was disrupted because his campaign website became the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

Congressman Paul hopes to be nominated as the Republican's party candidate for the 2010 presidential election.

This past weekend's fundraising drive, organized on his RonPaul2012.com website, was supposed to coincide with his 76th birthday, but things didn't go according to plan.

"The RonPaul2012.com website is under cyber attack. Our team is working to fix this as we speak. So sorry to all who have tried to make donations and could not. We'll have more info ASAP," the congressman wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

People immediately assumed that Anonymous might be involved, but the hacktivist collective did not claim responsibility for the attack which lasted a few hours.

Ron Paul's web team managed to stabilize the website and extended the "Money Bomb" until the following day in order to make up for lost time.

"We blocked the attack and are back on track. Since we missed time and donations, we are keeping the Money Bomb going until noon tomorrow. Please spread the word and make this a huge success!" the congressman later announced.

The fundraising drive was relatively successful despite the attack, Ron Paul's campaign team managing to raise $1.8 million over the weekend.

"No organisation likes its website to go down, and it's even worse if your site goes offline through no fault of your own. If you're tempted to engage in a denial-of-service attack it might be wise to remind yourself that you can end up in prison as a result," warns Sophos security expert Graham Cluley.

Of course, the prospect of going to prison doesn't seem to stop individuals from participating in massive DDoS attacks organized by Anonymous, which sees these actions as a virtual form of protest.