The infamous online hacker group Anonymous’ Quebec branch has taken the credit for penetrating the Montreal Police department website and the officers’ union.
On Friday, at 10:30PM, the Montreal police website went down and minutes later the Montreal police brotherhood also was shut down. The Police department website remained off until Saturday.
According to a tweet from Anonymous, the group targeted police because of the brutality accusations when thousands of students took to the streets to protest against the recent austerity measures.
https://twitter.com/QuebecAnon/status/586718137934020608
The hacker collective also identified that it will “ruin the life” of an officer who was seen pepper spraying protesters in Montreal.
https://twitter.com/QuebecAnon/status/586776822085451776
https://twitter.com/QuebecAnon/status/587262786578866176
https://twitter.com/QuebecAnon/status/587303837670735872
Police says that the situation is “sad” since this attack is the latest one in the unending array of similar attacks on Toronto police and the City of Ottawa websites.
The spokesman Manuel Couture explained that key information data such as info on missing people, news releases and police contacts wasn’t accessible to the public while the site was down.
He stated: “There’s a lot of information for the citizens, so it’s pretty sad that right now, they don’t have access to the site.”
Anonymous has however, made it clear that the group will keep targeting Montreal police even though the website is back online.
This is not the first time when Anonymous has shutdown website of Canadian government. In November 2014, the official website of Ottawa city, Canadian Supreme Court and Ottawa police was also taken down against the arrest of a 16-years-old kid for allegedly using social media to spread terrorism hoax around the country.
