The hacker group known as ‘Anonymous’ recently launched a stream of attacks on certain websites as a protest against the government’s actions towards the site Megaupload and the Stop Anti-Piracy Act (SOPA).

Anonymous has launched widespread ‘distributed denial of service’ attacks on websites in the past, but their recent attacks took advantage of internet users who were trying to click on a link for more information and unknowingly helped Anonymous target websites, according to a Tech News World article.

“[They used] a program that sends junked bits of data at web servers. So basically what people were doing [was] sending millions upon millions of pieces of data and trying to connect to this website repeatedly,” Kyle Lang, junior, said.

These links worked through a program called JavaScript, which is already required on most computers to access many websites. By clicking on the link, users’ computers would automatically go to the targeted website and continuously try and access the website. With enough people trying to access the website, the site would temporarily be out of service.

“Usually you just download this program, and you click a button and you put in the web address, and it’ll start sending [the junked data]. But the way that this was configured, somebody figured out a way where you push the link, and it would start sending these without you really even knowing,” Lang said.

Past attacks on websites used a program called Low Orbit Ion Canon that supporters or members of Anonymous could download. This program would direct their computers to the chosen web address and repeatedly try to access it. Once enough people did this, the site would shut down temporarily due to the number of people try to access it, according to a Cnet article.

Anonymous’ new tactic posted the web links on popular sites, such as Twitter or Facebook, from their ‘Anonymous’ accounts. Any user who clicked on these links, perhaps looking for more information on the hacking group, accidentally participated in Anonymous’ attacks on sites such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Copyright Office, the FBI, powerful music and media sites, and others, according to the Tech News article.

 While many internet users may have been pulled into the attacks unknowingly, there were many others who intentionally worked to protest SOPA, ACTA, and the government’s actions towards the Megaupload site.

“From the looks of things, this is on a scale we haven’t seen before,” Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos, said in a Cnet article. “We saw some Anonymous Twitter accounts gain hundreds of thousands of new fans overnight as word began to spread.”

While users who accidentally clicked on the links cannot be punished legally because they were unaware of their involvement in the hacking, navigating any sites where Anonymous posts links or information require caution and care to avoid being used in their protest.

“If you don’t know where a link’s going to take you and you don’t trust it, don’t click on it. It’s the only way to stop it,” Lang said. “Be careful what you click on, and in the future, I don’t think as many people will fall for it.”