Hackers launch wave of attacks on al-Qaeda websites

Anonymous hackers have launched a series of sophisticated denial-of-service assaults on Islamic Jihadist websites that have crippled such groups efforts to use the Internet as a communications medium, reports The Register.

The cyber assaults left pro-al-Qaeda groups without a single, trusted distribution channel on the Internet, cyber analysts said.

Basic denial-of-service attacks involve flooding targets with junk traffic, but these well-coordinated attacks likely included more sophisticated techniques such as application layer assaults and attempts to disguise the geographical origin of packets in attempts to bypass basic traffic filtering techniques, the article states.