Hacker group Anonymous on Thursday blocked the website of the University of Antioquia Thursday to prevent the students from voting on whether or not they wanted to continue a strike at the institution.
The attack, which the hacker group called “Operation U de A,” was timed to coincide with a virtual consultation that asked students if they wanted to continue with the strike that has been going on for months, or to resume classes as normal. Only 150 students were able to respond to the consultation before the hackers saturated the portal, sending multiple simultaneous requests in order to collapse and block access.
The hacker group want the strike at the university to continue and published on their Facebook Friday that they will continue to block the online consultation process in the hopes of extending the strike into October.
Anonymous announced the successful Thursday hack via their Twitter page, stating “the page is still down. nobody can vote.” The hacker group also mocked the university for having hired a private digital security organization to prevent the planned attack saying “you wasted that money invested in the private company.”
The strike began on September 14 in response to a proposal by President Juan Manuel Santos to reform higher education by allowing private institutions to finance activities at public universities.