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Anonymous Shuts Down Several Saudi Government Websites After Recent Executions

The execution of 47 Shia Saudis sparks worldwide debate and ferocious attacks on the part of Anonymous members

Jan 4, 2016 15:21 GMT  ·  By
Anonymous takes down various Saudi government portals
   Anonymous takes down various Saudi government portals

Online hacktivists associated with the Anonymous group have shut down several websites belonging to the Saudi Arabian government, in protest after the country executed 47 prisoners in 12 towns on January 1.

The honest truth is that this attack from Anonymous was to be expected, since the group has been very vocal against the Saudi government for quite some years now and defaced and took down government portals with DDoS attacks in previous incidents.

The hacker collective previously launched operation #OpNimr, named after Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a young teenager who participated in public protests against the country's leadership and tried to organize an Arab Spring-like movement.

While the young al-Nimr wasn't one of the people killed in Saudi Arabia's recent wave of executions, many others were, most of them of Shia nationality.

The Saudi government accused them of being al-Qaida members, an explanation that was never accepted by other Shia-predominant states like Iran, who accused the country of purging major Shia political figures.

Ironically, Saudi Arabia is also the head of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, which rubbed many Anonymous members the wrong way, after previously being angry at al-Nimr's death sentence.

DDoS attacks cripple various government portals

As retaliation, the hackers did the only thing they could and attacked several government websites. According to an Anonymous representative, the hackers managed to take down the websites of the Saudi Ministry of Education, Ministry of Defense, the Royal Air Force, and the Saudi Press Association.

Other targeted sites that regained service include the Saudi Mistry of Finances, the Saudi Customs Service, the General Passports Service, and the Saudi Ombudsman's Office.

The attacks were carried out yesterday, January 3, and at the time of writing this article, all websites remained down. The sites were brought down using DDoS attacks, and no defacement messages were left behind.