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British Government websites have been attacked by hackers angered by the country’s stance on the extradition of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange to Sweden.
Last night activists used Twitter to spread code to overload websites of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), 10 Downing Street, the Home Office and the Department of Work and Pensions.
One automated programme allowed users to automatically bombard the Prime Minister’s official website with 1,000 service requests per second – launching the programme with a “Fire!!!” button.
The software attack on the website servers was announced on Twitter by hackers by using the phrase "Tango Down".
Most sites proved resilient to the so-called denial of service assaults and appeared to be working normally on Tuesday morning, however the MOJ admitted it had been affected.
An MOJ spokeswoman told Sky News: "The Ministry of Justice website has been experiencing some disruption - this is a public information website and no sensitive data is held on it.
"Measures put in place to keep the website running mean that some visitors may be unable to access the site intermittently.
"We will continue to monitor the situation and will take measures accordingly."
Activists claimed to be located in numerous countries, including Indonesia, the US, Britain, Brazil and Chile.
Code was also spread to help WikiLeaks supporters attack the website of the Royal Family.
Activists promoted details of the assault by using several Twitter hashtags, including #OpFreeAssange, and promised more action against the UK and Sweden.
Mr Assange sought political asylum within the UK embassy of Ecuador to avoid extradition to the Scandanavian country, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations made by two women.
British police have warned Mr Assange he will be arrested if he leaves the Ecuadorian diplomatic post, located in Knightsbridge.
