SOCA website hit by DDoS attack

The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has been hit by hackers for the second time in less than a year.

The police agency confirmed that its website has suffered a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, effectively preventing internet users from reaching it. SOCA's website was the target of malicious attackers, having previously suffered from a DDoS attack at the hands of the Lulzsec group in June 2011.

A SOCA spokesperson confirmed that the website was taken offline at approximately 10pm on Wednesday, but that there was no security risk for the organisation.

Graham Cluley, senior security consultant at Sophos, said the police agency was correct that there was no security risk posed by the attack, "but we still have to remember that such an assault is illegal."

He added that these attacks "can cause huge disruption to organisations and their visitors, and can be used to make political points, prevent firms from doing business and even blackmail targeted websites."

It is not known who is behind the current attack but when we tried to access the site we found it was still unavailable.