WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) -- An attack that has disrupted al-Qaida's Web sites appears to have been carried out by hackers with government backing, an expert said.
Evan Kohlmann of Flashpoint Global Partners told NBC the attack involved "an unusual cocktail of relatively sophisticated techniques."
"Al-Qaida's online communications have been temporarily crippled, and it does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the Internet," he said.
Hackers disrupted al-Qaida sites last year in an attack aimed at English-language services and especially at an online magazine, "Inspire." In one case, the hackers substituted an Ellen DeGeneres cupcake recipe for an article entitled "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."
British newspapers have said that country's intelligence services were behind that attack.
Kohlmann said the latest attack bears "the telltale fingerprints of government-sponsored hackers."
