Nissan has taken down two of its websites after DDoS attacks launched by members of Anonymous against the company to protest against whaling in Japan.
Anonymous had previously hacked multiple targets as part of the #OpWhales and #OpKillingBay campaigns, including government websites in Japan and Iceland, the personal website of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and many others .
While the group most often carries out its DDoS attacks against Japanese officials who were directly involved in operations related to whale and dolphin killings, the attack on the Nissan is a change in the group's modus operandi.
Recently, Anonymous has begun targeting Japanese businesses in order to keep them on their toes and pressure Japanese employees to stop whaling. Until now, this has only been the case for smaller companies.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that over 100 Japanese businesses were hit by DDoS attacks in the final months of 2015. But that all changed yesterday when Anonymous decided to attack Japan's second largest car manufacturer.
The attacks were violent and scared Nissan security personnel enough to shut down the domains: nissan.co.jp and nissan-global.com to prevent more dangerous intrusions.
"Due to a possible DDoS attack, we are temporarily suspending services on our websites to prevent further risks," Nissan in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
The hacker who carried out the attack later commented that he did not breach the company's databases and was only interested in sending a message. That message is that in addition to signing international conventions to stop whaling, Japan is using "loopholes" to justify its actions as "scientific research.".
At the time of writing, both of Nissan are still down.
