Did Anonymous hack Minneapolis police website? Hacktivist group makes a resurgence

Widespread civil unrest is now being witnessed in the USA especially in the state of Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd. Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is also facing criticism from all around the USA along with many netizens from around the world voicing their opinions against the police brutality witnessed in Minneapolis. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, the hacktivist group Anonymous has now resurfaced and waged cyberwar against the Minneapolis Police Department. Anonymous recently released a video threatening the Minneapolis Police Department that they will expose all their crimes to the world. Shortly after the video surfaced on the internet, the Minneapolis Police Department's website was subjected to a hack. Check out the video below - 

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Anonymous' video threatening MPD

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Image courtesy - Bantersnaps on Unsplash

The Minneapolis Police Department's website has reportedly been showing signs of a hack since May 30, 2020. Just a few days after Anonymous posted the video threatening them. The website was temporarily inaccessible on May 30 when protestors came to the streets and marched against police brutality targeting the African-American community. On the other hand, the website required users to enter captchas in order to verify that they were not bots on Sunday, May 31, 2020. The captcha tool is used to mitigate hacks that attempt to temporarily disable the websites with automated requests. As per reports, the Minneapolis Police Department was approached by various news portals in the USA to comment about the recent hack of their website, but officials have not made any official comment on it. 

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Over the weekend, the video posted by Anonymous was viewed more than 2.5 million times on Facebook, where it was initially posted. The video was then also circulated on various other social media portals including YouTUbe, which is currently removing every re-upload of the video, striking it down under community guidelines violation. Anonymous has made a claim that over 190 African-Americans have been killed by the Minneapolis Police Department in recent years which have been swept under the rug by officials. Anonymous also took the names of a number of victims of brutal police killings in Minneapolis like Jamar Clark, Philando Castle and Brian Quinones. The speaker in the video concluded by saying that they will expose Minneapolis' Police Department's crimes in their entirety. 

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