On Friday afternoon, the Los Angeles Police Department's website went down due to an overload, officials said, despite claims on social media that an online group was responsible for the outage through their "cyber attack."
It is widely believed that the Dark Storm group claims that its "cyberattack" was responsible for the downing of the website.
However, Muniz said there was no evidence to suggest that that was true. Some claims have been made regarding the downing of the website. The LAPD has long planned for an upgrade to its website — with security being a major concern. The website contains general information about its bureaus, leaders, crime statistics, and other reports and documents published by the LAPD.
After Lowriders claimed that law enforcement shut down their annual Cinco de Mayo celebration in Elysian Park Sunday, they ended up in Pasadena. The Los Angeles Police Department reported they did not have the permits to hold the event and would increase traffic during the Dodgers' game. The fact that neither side agreed on the date and time of this event is a disappointment.
The LAPD Northeast Division Community Police Advisory Board has said that the event will take place between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. The event is scheduled for between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.
The LAPD Media Relations Division Officer Drake Madison, who works in the Department of Media Relations, said that the website was not working just after 11 a.m. Friday.
It is noted on the site at 4:45 p.m. that, at this point, there is a message stating, "Our services aren't available right now, but we are working to restore them as soon as possible. We look forward to seeing you soon."
In her statement, Madison stated that the LAPD's website was not experiencing a security breach, nor was the website affected by the fact that it had been overloaded.
The LAPD official further stated that a further review indicated that the system had been overloaded, which caused a "denial of services." There was also a report in the Los Angeles Times that an organization called Dark Storm claimed responsibility for the incident on Telegram as part of its "cyber attack." A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, Captain Kelly Muniz, confirmed to the newspaper that the claims were not accurate.
In the Times report, the LAPD has long been planning to upgrade its site - based on security concerns being one of its major concerns - with the upgrade dating back as far as 2004. However, the description of the group claiming responsibility was not available, but an online search revealed it is likely to be a group of hackers.
