Minnesota courts website hacked

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An international activist hacker group is claiming responsibility for the latest attack on the Minnesota court system’s website.

State officials became aware of the “distributed denial-of-service” attack on the Minnesota judicial branch’s website. That’s around the same time the group Anonymous Legion emailed the Star Tribune (http://strib.mn/28QrtBV ).

The group said the act was executed “collectively, through a global attack.” The site was back up by late Wednesday afternoon.

The attack is similar to attacks that interrupted the site last December. Last year’s attacks were traced to Asia and Canada. The state did not say Wednesday whether the latest attack may be linked to the previous incidents.

A spokesman for the state court administration office says the FBI’s Cyber Task Force has been contacted.