Hackers attack Sweden websites in support of Internet file sharers

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Hackers shut down the website of Sweden's central bank on Wednesday and targeted two other official sites after activist group Anonymous was reported to have threatened it would launch a cyber attack in support of Internet file sharers.

Several websites in Sweden have come under attack this week and crashed. The main method used was a distributed denial of service attack, where a website's host computers are bombarded with requests for information, making them crash.

On the chat group, 4chan, users provided a link to a picture which urged people to attack the central bank's website after the authorities this week raided an Internet service provider as part of a campaign to close down file sharing websites.

The picture did not name which websites the authorities had wanted to target.