A website that was al-Qaeda's main channel for spreading its propaganda has been shut down by what experts said had the signs of a hacking attack by a Western intelligence agency. The al-Shamukh forum was used to issue official statements for al-Qaeda, including its confirmation that Osama bin Laden was killed, and video messages from al-Zawahiri. But the website is now completely disabled after its address was revoked and then its contents were deleted from the server that hosted it in Malaysia. Its administrators reported "technical difficulties" through other jihadi forums.
Evan Kohlmann of Flashpoint Partners, a security consultancy, said, "First, the address stopped working, but the forum was still available via its direct IP address. Then, about 12 hours later, the entire site got wiped clean at the level of the data hosting server. Those were two separate and distinct events that occurred in rather close proximity to each other."
Last year al-Shamukh supplanted an earlier forum, al-Faloja, also used to distribute propaganda and martyrdom videos. This week's seeming attack leaves al-Qaeda with no official communications channel online.
The shut down comes not long after al-Shamukh published a list of senior government, industry and media figures to be killed by lone terrorists. Earlier this month, the FBI warned 40 prominent people that they were named on the hit list.
The apparent sophistication of the attack on al-Shamukh led to claims that Western intelligence agency hackers were responsible. Earlier this month it was revealed that MI6 and GCHQ hackers hijacked the an issue of al-Qaeda's magazine, Inspire, and inserted baking recipes in what they called "Operation Cupcake". British intelligence took action after the CIA prevented the plan in the US, arguing that disrupting the launch would close off the flow of valuable intelligence.
If it wasn't intelligence agencies behind the shut down, it is possible that one of many digital vigilantes were responsible. One security source said the site's software was relatively insecure and leaked administrator passwords.