anonymous
© Reuters/Peter Andrews

Only hours after two of its biggest releases ever, the online collective Anonymous is taking credit for crashing the website of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Shortly before 4 p.m. EST Friday afternoon, the Homeland Security Department's website, DHS.gov, was taken offline. It was announced on the Web by members of the loose-knit hacktivist collective Anonymous and some claiming allegiance to the group have have taken credit for the attack.

Within minutes, DHS.gov was back up.

The crippling of the DHS website comes on the same day that Anonymous relaunched its FuckFBIFriday campaign. Throughout 2011, the group regularly released information they obtained by infiltrated government computers. After a break in the campaign, the group revisited it early Friday with two rounds of releases.

Earlier in the day, Anonymous released the audio of a conference call between the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Britain's Scotland Yard in which both organizations discuss Anonymous. The call was conducted this January and the FBI has since confirmed the authenticity of the recording.

Hours later, Anonymous hacked the website for the attorneys of Sgt. Frank Wuterich, a US Marine who was recently on trial for a massacre of Iraqi civilians stemming from a 2005 incident in Haditha, Iraq. Despite admitting his role in orchestrating a raid on two civilian homes and asking his Marines to "shoot first, ask later," Wuterich was sentenced to no time in jail.