An anti-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) hacking group has claimed responsibility for the recent cyber-attack on BBC's website. New World Hackers sent a message to BBC claiming that it had not planned to take down the website for multiple hours. However, it argued that its tests were necessary and cyber hackers have an important job of fighting online terrorists.
The hacking group claims it is based in the United States, according to BBC. However, its main goal is to take down ISIS websites and members.
It sent the message to BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones about the cyber-attack's goals. He posted the message on Twitter.
The hack attack took place on December 31, Thursday. BBC's news website and iPlayer went offline for a couple of hours.
Cellan-Jones described the attack as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This was based on BBC sources.
Such cyber-attacks usually target websites by using messages from several systems to flood servers. Then they cannot respond to real Web traffic.
New World Hackers claimed it had targeted the BBC to test its server power. The hacking group stated it is made up of 12 people who formed in 2012.
A BBC spokeswoman reported that the broadcaster would not provide any comments about New World Hackers' claim of responsibility, according to ABC.net.
The hacking group has participated in other hacking activities. They included an online campaign against the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group, and #OpParis to identify and report ISIS social media accounts following last November's Paris attacks.