Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous reportedly launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the website of the Court of Rio de Janeiro for its decision to block WhatsApp in Brazil.

The DDoS attacks against the Court of Rio de Janeiro allegedly forced the site offline for a period. Members of Anonymous Brazil confirmed the attack on their Facebook page saying, “Court of Justice of the state of Rio de Janeiro off in protest to the blockade of the WhatsApp.”

The Rio Court recently ruled to block WhatsApp in Brazil as the application will not decrypt communications for criminal investigation procedures, according to reports. The Court of Rio de Janeiro had allegedly sent three court orders to receive specific information from WhatsApp related to criminal investigations.

WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption to its messages between users in April 2016. The message service provider said it is unable to disclose data on these communications.

Court orders through out Brazil have previously ordered a ban on WhatsApp for similar reasons during criminal investigations in December 2015, February and May 2016, according to reports.

The website of the Court of Rio de Janeiro is fully restored and functional at the time of this post. WhatsApp service in Brazil has also been restored to users through out the country.

Source: http://www.batblue.com/anonymous-launches-ddos-attacks-rio-court-website/