Kate McKenna reports:
The Quebec branch of the online hacker collective Anonymous is taking credit for infiltrating the websites of the Montreal police and the union representing its officers.
Op Fry The SPVM | Target: DOWN | Montreal Fraternal Order Of Police – http://t.co/S2fH2vb0hF | #Anonymous#FuckSPVM pic.twitter.com/ctgBRRicNC
— Anonymous Quebec (@QuebecAnon) April 11, 2015
Around 10:30 p.m. ET on Friday, the Montreal police website went offline, followed minutes later by that of the Montreal police brotherhood. As of 10 a.m. on Saturday, the former was still not working.
Read more on CBC News. The attack is reportedly retaliation for alleged police brutality towards student protesters.
This is not the first time the Montreal police have been attacked. In March, 2013, this site noted a serious breach involving undercover agents’ identity information. That post also noted an earlier breach in 2012. And as one individual tweeted today:
I know folks who’ve been hacking SPVM servers since 2011. The same vulns are still there. Maybe they should spend on ITs not pepper spray.
— Commander X (@CommanderXanon) April 11, 2015
As of the time of this posting, the web site for the Montreal police remains unreachable. There doesn’t seem to be any mention of that on their twitter feed, either, so I’m not sure if they’ve issued any press release about the attack, but CJAD News reported overnight:
Montreal police media relations officer Jean-Pierre Brabant says police are aware of the problem and are working on getting their website back up. No private information is at risk, he says, but in the meantime citizens can’t access information about their police department online.
The fraternal order of police site was reportedly down for a few hours, but is now back online.