Nissan’s Main Websites Knocked Offline by Anonymous

Anonymous have struck once again, the target this time: car manufacturer Nissan. Two of Nissan’s main websites were affected by the attack, with their global and Japanese sites being suspended after a barrage of traffic was received by both sites. While both of those sites remain offline, both the US and European sites remain online.

The basis for this attack is part of another of Anonymous’ operations, OpKillingBay, addressing Japan’s advocacy of whaling and the killing of hundreds of whales every year by the country. This operation has been indiscriminate in its attack on Japanese corporations on Twitter, with the #OpKillingBay being full of tweets telling people not to buy Japanese products such as cars and citing their attacks as punishment for their crimes. Nissan has stated that they have no view on Japanese whaling activities.

The attack on Nissan’s sites is not the first cyberattack made to protest whaling. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s website was taken down last month with an Anonymous-affiliated hacktivist claiming responsibility for the attack. The targets are not limited to Japan either, as in November a number of government websites in Iceland, including the prime minister’s and those of a number of ministries were hit.

A member of Anonymous claiming responsibility for the attack on Nissan stated that they were attacking large corporations in Japan as it is the best way to raise awareness for the issue, with the widespread censorship of it amongst Japanese domestic news outlets. They did mention that they wished no harm to Nissan’s customer or system data.

Whaling may be a major issue, with the harm that it does to the environment and the fact that the Japanese persistence on the matter being in contradiction with international law, but whether the correct way to protest it is cyberattacks is another matter. Anonymous is hardly a group to do things by half-measures though, so we could expect to see attacks on other Japanese departments or corporations in the near future until Japan addresses the issue.