Anonymous takes aim at Trump Tower website
Taking time out of its busy schedule on a day it had announced as ‘day of ISIS trolling‘, the online hacktivist collective Anonymous spared some time to launch a campaign against the US Presidential candidate Donald Trump. It announced the launch of campaigns called #OpTrump and #OpFire with an attack on the website for Donald Trump’s trademark New York City skyscraper.
Before commencing on the attacks on Trump Towers website, Anonymous also posted a customer video on YouTube warning against Trump’s plan to halt the immigration of Muslims into the U.S.
https://youtu.be/eSnOwUE5Fro
“This policy is going to have a huge impact,” says a man in a Guy Fawkes mask through a voice scrambler. “This is what ISIS wants. The more Muslims feel sad, the more ISIS feels they can recruit them…You have been warned, Mr. Donald Trump.”
Donald Trump appeared on Anonymous radar after he made controversial statements on Monday. His statement that Muslims should be banned entering United States evoked sharp criticism not only in the US but also around the world.
That afternoon on Twitter, a user called @FibsFreitag posted a screengrab of what appeared to be an attempt to take down the Trump Tower site.
https://twitter.com/FibsFreitag/status/674662041135816706
It read, “trumptowerny.com nearly down. we need more laz0rs! #DDoS #OpTrump #OpFire.”
By Friday, another Anonymous affiliated Twitter account, @YourAnonNews claimed success in bringing down the Trump Towers NY website.
Trump Towers NY site taken down as statement against racism and hatred. https://t.co/n5ftLrOs1P (what you see is cloudflare offline backup)
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) December 11, 2015
The alleged damage might not have been apparent, though, to visitors to the page, because, as the tweet explained, “(what you see is cloudflare offline backup)” — meaning a cached version of the site likely programmed to hold the fort in the event of an attack or maintenance issues.
Trump Towers has not yet commented on the issue.
