National Crime Agency website taken town by Lizard Squad in revenge attack

'DDoS is a blunt form of attack, which takes volume and not skill,' says NCA in rebuke to Lizard Squad

The National Crime Agency (NCA) website has been taken down in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in an apparent revenge strike by hacking group Lizard Squad after members of the group were arrested on Friday.

Six UK teenagers were apprehended as part of an operation targeting users of Lizard Squad's Lizard Stresser tool, software that enables its users pay to take websites offline in DDoS attacks.

On Tuesday morning, the NCA website itself was taken down and Lizard Squad appeared to claim responsibility with the group Tweeting a link to the downed website with the hashtag 'offline'. The website is now back online.

"The NCA website is an attractive target. Attacks on it are a fact of life," the NCA said in a statement following the DDoS attack. The organisation was keen to stressed that its website hadn't been hacked, but just overwhelmed with traffic.

"DDoS is a blunt form of attack, which takes volume and not skill. It isn't a security breach, and it doesn't affect our operational capability. At worst it is a temporary inconvenience to users of our website," the NCA said.

"We have a duty to balance the value of keeping our website accessible with the cost of doing so, especially in the face of a threat which can scale up endlessly," the statement continued.

"The measures we have in place at present mean that our site is generally up and running again within 30 minutes, though occasionally it can take longer. We think that's proportionate," it added.

Prior to the incident, the most recent post on the National Crime Agency Twitter account was a link to advice on protecting websites against being the victim of a DDoS attack.

One expert recently told Computing that one of the best ways to protect your organisation against DDoS attacks is to monitor hacktivist forums for users discussing potential attacks.

"In the case of DDoS, the perpetrators often telegraph their desires and announce their intent in online forums and through social media. In many cases, they even state the date that they intend to launch these attacks," said Stephen Ward, senior director at global cyber-threat intelligence company iSIGHT Partners .

Those arrested in connection to Lizard Squad's Lizard Stresser tool have been bailed and Tony Adams, head of investigations at the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, argued how it was important to show youngsters selling such services that what they're doing is wrong.

"One of our key priorities is to engage with those on the fringes of cyber criminality, to help them understand the consequences of cyber crime and how they can channel their abilities into productive and lucrative legitimate careers," he said.

Adams' comments echo those of Andy Archibald, deputy director of the National Cybercrime Unit, who previously argued that it's important prevent young hacktivists from being led through a "gateway to the dark side".

"What we're starting to learn is that as these youngsters are being sucked towards the 'dark side', there are certain gateway crimes they're being encouraged to commit. They appear to be minor, even victimless crimes, but they are a gateway into those that support really major crimes for organised crime gangs," he said.