Hacker Takes Down GoDaddy.com Websites

Trying to connect to a website today and having problems? It's possible the site you're trying to access was taken down by a hacker earlier today.

The Web-hosting company GoDaddy.com took a big hit Monday from a hacker identifying himself on Twitter as @AnonymousOwn3r. In a tweet, the hacker said he wanted to challenge the company's online security and claimed other reasons he could not disclose. According to @AnonymousOwn3r's Twitter profile he calls himself the "security leader of Anonymous" and an "Anonymous official member." @AnonymousOwn3r indicated the attack on GoDaddy was him alone and not being carried out by the whole of Anonymous' hacker community.

GoDaddy tweeted it is aware of the problem and is working to resolve the issue.

Anonymous is a loosely associated group of "hacktivists" that, among other things, strongly opposes the idea of Internet ownership, censorship and surveillance, according to Wikipedia.

Since 2008, its members have claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile attacks on corporate and government websites.

Naperville resident Jacke Zahn, who owns the site www.iwanttoelearn.com, said before learning of the hack she spent some time trying to troubleshoot her site when it would not load earlier today.

"I spent 15 minutes troubleshooting from here until it occurred to me to jump on Twitter and look up GoDaddy," she said on Facebook.

Zahn's site has been restored, but many sites (including my personal site) remain down. Zahn said her email, whish is routed through GoDaddy is still down.

We will update with more information as we receive it.

GoDaddy hosts more than 45 million domain names.