Lebanese Hacktivists Take Down 15 Government Websites

Hacktivists have taken aim at the Lebanese government over poor living standards by taking down and defacing 15 websites.

‘Raise Your Voice’, the name of the group taking responsibility, left messages on downed sites calling for the mobilisation of the Lebanese people against what it perceived as governmental injustices.

Outcry over living conditions

“We will not stop until this government’s self-made problems are solved, like the power shortage, water shortage, rise in gas prices and rise in food product prices. We are RYV, expect us to break the silence, whether in the streets or on the Internet.”

The group began its attack at roughly midday on Monday based message from its Twitter account. Among the government departments targeted were the transportation ministry, the justice ministry, customs and the ministry of energy and water. While some of the sites have since been restored, the Lebanese Daily Star notes that some were attack again, retaining Raise Your Voice’s message, which comes in two distinct styles of visual commentary.

Additionally, hackers also tried to overload the servers of the domestic MTV website, though the hacktivist group denied this particular allegation via Twitter.

According to Reuters, the energy and water minister, Gebran Bassil, responded to the hackers in the brief period when the department’s site was brought back up by blaming his predecessor. Bassil took over the department from a member of the Hezbollah party in 2009, picking it up while it was supposedly in disarray.

As Raise Your Voice’s message highlights, the issues left over since then have not been resolved, though Bassil claims that he has created a “rescue plan for the sector with consensus for all the parties”.

How much do you know about online piracy?  Try our quiz