The arrest of Megaupload executives in Auckland, New Zealand caused the hacking group to retaliate in cyber attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice. Megaupload.com was one of the largest global filesharing sites.
Megaupload is a service that allows people to upload and transfer large files such as movies and music with hundreds of servers around the world.
The filesharing website had nearly 50 million visitors daily. The site was taken down on Thursday when the men behind the site were accused of cheating copyright holders out of a hefty $500m over the course of five years.
Anonymous announced on a twitter account associated with the group @YourAnonNews that the cyberattack was "The Largest Attack Ever by Anonymous as several websites for the White House, Department of Justice, FBI, Universal Music, and Warner Music were disabled."
Members of the hacking group Anonymous said in a statement posted on the file-hosting site Pastebin.com: "We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. The FBI didn’t think they would get away with this did they? They should have expected us."