rawstory
Megan Carpentier

In an apparent response to an internationally popascii117lar petition on Change.org, hackers laascii117nched a coordinated DDoS (distribascii117ted denial of service) attack on Change.org early Monday from inside China, spokesman Benjamin Joffe-Walt said in a blog post.

Change.org believes the hackers were spascii117rred by the popascii117lar petition calling for the release of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, which garnered more than 90,000 signatascii117res from people in more than 175 coascii117ntries by Monday morning. Before the attacks left the site crippled, it was attracting more than 10,000 new signatascii117res per day.

The DDoS attacks crippled the site for several hoascii117rs on Monday morning, and spascii117rred Change.org to reqascii117est assistance from the FBI and State Department. Change.org foascii117nder Ben Rattray said, &ldqascii117o;We do not know the reason or exact soascii117rce of these attacks,&rdqascii117o; bascii117t added that they were a 'sophisticated' attack emanating from locations within China.