Anonymous Claims Attack On CIA Web Site

Hackers claiming an affiliation with hactivist collective Anonymous said they were responsible for an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack that took down the Central Intelligence Agency Web site on Friday.

The attack was the latest attributed to Anonymous that targeted the Web site of a government entity. In recent weeks, the site of the Department of Justice and White House were taken down.

Anonymous reported the site was down on Twitter. "CIA Tango Down: cia.gov #Anonymous," the post said. "Tango down" is a military term that refers to the killing of a target. Later, the group seemed to back away from taking responsibility. "We'd remind media that if we report a hack or DDoS attack, it doesn't necessarily mean we did it...FYI."

Commenting on the attack, a CIA spokesman told The Washington Post, "We are looking into these reports." The site, www.cia.gov, was inaccessible at 5 p.m. PST Friday, several hours after the initial report.

Whether an Anonymous group was actually responsible is difficult to determine. It was also unclear as to why the CIA was targeted.

In the attack on the Justice Department site in January, Anonymous said it was retaliating against the arrest of the leaders of Megaupload.com, an illegal fire sharing site that distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in copyrighted music, movies and software.