Is RenewableUK being cyber bullied?

RenewableUK is hoping to have its web site up and running again today after being brought to its knees by hackers this week.

The Sceptic Tank was shown a big red warning sign when we tried to visit the site this morning.

Google spiders said there had been nine problems in the last 90 days when they crawled the site on Sunday. All but one of the 18 pages tested downloaded malicious software.

But this isn't the first time the trade body has struggled to stay afloat in the ether. Two weeks ago their internet was down for a whole weekend - just when it wanted to send out an important press release countering a controversial KMPG report attacking wind power.

While the Tank sits spinning on our office chair, waiting to log back on, we can't help but wonder who would want to cause such web-based havoc.

What kind of an organisation would bear a grudge against wind turbines?

Has anyone indulged in hacking and various cyber-nasties in the past in order to attack and disrupt green organisations, or, say, climate scientists?

Of course the peeps from RenewableUK wouldn't want to speculate over who might have it in for them, and think the recent downtime is just a series of unfortunate events.

A spokesman said the internet failure a few weeks back was caused by something as mundane as workmen on their street accidentally cutting power lines, and this week's hacking attack was probably just a "random" incident. Funny thing, random incidents.

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