Trai website hacked after it releases over 1 million email IDs; Anonymous India claims responsibility

Indian regulator Trai’s official website has been hacked just hours after it released over 1 million email IDs of users who wrote to them in support of Net Neutrality. Hacking group Anonymous has taken responsibility for the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and bringing the site down.

We were unable to access the official Trai website nor access any of the responses which were put up on the site. In a series of tweets, the hacker group made comments on how their motive is to fight for the freedom of Internet in India.

https://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/592629008841465856

https://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/592633640221290496

When a user asked about this move, the group replied back saying that it was, “preventing spammers from accessing those Email IDs posted by #TRAI publicly.”

Earlier today, Trai had released  the list of email IDs from which it received responses regarding Net Neutrality. This move received a great amount of flak from the public and at the same time, threatened the privacy of millions of internet users in India. As the number of comments was huge, Trai had divided the comments under three categories namely comments from service providers, comments from service providers associations and comments from other stakeholders.

Some Twitter users seemed happy with this move and tweeted in support of Anonymous.

#TRAI how do we trust u with all our data when u cant even prevent ddos. Worthless!! Well done @opindia_revenge https://t.co/ftGUw2cRMS

— Charu Dixit (@CharuDixit) April 27, 2015

Our #TRAI is so brainless to make those e-mail's public! Good job @opindia_revenge with the DDOS. Let them know people aren't stupid!

— Karthik (@cyberinfern0) April 27, 2015

But there were others who also questioned Anonymous India’s intent behind the attack, going so far as to call this act immature.

To protest TRAI releasing 1 million email addresses Anon ops brings down their website. Someone tell 12 year olds to go outside & play.

— Nobody (@sudhamshu) April 27, 2015

. @OxbloodRuffin What a bunch of naive punk script kiddies they are. Thinking a DOS attack on TRAI is leet. Mewling louts! @opindia_revenge

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh) April 27, 2015

@pranesh_prakash Their actions are more LulzSec than Anon, if you ask me. @OxbloodRuffin @opindia_revenge

— Vinay Kesari (@vinaykesari) April 27, 2015