A hacker collective calling themselves YourVikingdom intermittently took down Indiana’s state website, www.in.gov, in response to Indiana Governor Mike Pence signing a controversial “religious freedom” bill, that many say legalizes discrimination against gays. The group said, “Since Indiana’s Gov decided to sign the religious bill allowing to discriminate it’s time for #OPIndiana to start,” and linked to an article on Perez Hilton’s website about the bill.
Greg Lubsen, a spokesman for the Indiana Office of Technology, confirmed the attack, saying, “Indiana, like many other states, has been targeted with a denial of service interruption. The website was not hacked. A denial of service attack consists of sending many traffic requests at the same time in order to overwhelm a website and have it not be able to load. The denial of service interruption began at approximately 2:00, but the site has not been continuously down.”
YourVikingdom has targeted more than 30 government websites in 21 states this month. Another group calling itself Vikingdom2015 released a document with a “Target List” of 44 .gov websites. Attacks on .gov websites have grown recently, including attacks on official websites in Maine, Oregon, and New Hampshire.
The law was signed by Governor Pence on Thursday and prohibits state and local governments from burdening a person’s ability to exercise religion, which many interpret to mean that it allows individuals to discriminate against gays and lesbians for religious reasons.
Enjoyed this article? Learn more about what we do and follow us at @BatBlue.
