Police and city websites in Minneapolis have come under cyber-attack as both lawful protests and illegal rioting continue across America.
The nationwide social upheaval was triggered by the death of Houston native George Floyd in the city a week ago. Floyd died after 44-year-old police officer Derek Chauvin arrested him and kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes despite the handcuffed man's pleas that he could not breathe.
Floyd, who had recently lost his job due to the COVID-10 pandemic, was arrested after allegedly using forged money to pay a bill at a grocery store.
Following Floyd's tragic death, filmed by bystanders who sadly let the chance to intervene slip through their fingers, Chauvin was fired from his job. The former cop was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on May 29.
Chauvin's arrest has not put an end to the peaceful protests inspired by the police officer's failure to uphold a sworn promise to protect and serve the public. Nor has it doused the outbreaks of looting and vandalism that have seen American businesses, churches, and educational establishments raided, torched, and destroyed.
Some of the city of Minneapolis' public websites and systems were hit by a cyber-attack on Thursday morning. A city spokesperson told The Hill that a denial of service (DoS) attack had resulted in the temporary shutdown of some websites and systems.
Within hours of the incident, 95% of affected systems and sites were back up and running. It is not known whether the attack was specifically linked to the protests over Floyd's death or simply timed to exploit a city in turmoil.
“Although these types of attacks are not completely unavoidable, they are fairly common, and the City of Minneapolis has proactive measures in place to respond to and mitigate disruptions when they do occur,” the spokesperson said.
“The City of Minneapolis IT continues to monitor its cyber platforms to ensure further disruption doesn't happen again.”
A DoS attack was also levied at the state level. In a news briefing delivered yesterday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said Minnesota's computers were assaulted on Saturday night.
"Before our operation kicked off last night, a very sophisticated denial of service attack on all state computers was executed," said Walz.