WikiLeaks often leaves government officials and organisations red faced. However, the data-leaking website got a taste of its own medicine after coming under attack from notorious hacker group OurMine.

Thursday 31 August saw the WikiLeaks website replaced with a message from the group.

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It claimed to be in response to a “hack us” challenge issued by the site, as well as a past attack from fellow hacker collective Anonymous.

The WikiLeaks website has since returned to normal. However, the humiliation remains, courtesy of the #WikiLeaksHack hashtag that the group started.

However, WikiLeaks aren’t alone.

They are one of many organisations and individuals to have suffered an attack from the Saudi Arabian-based group over the last 18 months.

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A timeline of OurMine: Who has the group hacked in the past?

23/5/2016
Deadmau5
6/6/2016
Mark Zuckerberg
21/6/16
Shuhei Yoshida
22/6/16
Channing Tatum
24/6/16
Daniel Ek
28/6/16
Sundar Pichai
11/7/16
Jack Dorsey
26/7/16
TechCrunch
1/8/16
John Hanke
21/8/17
PlayStation
22/8/16
Jimmy Wales
5/10/16
BuzzFeed
21/12/16
Netflix
 21/12/16
Marvel
26/12/16
Sony Music
 31/12/16
National Geographic
7/1/17
David Guetta
 22/1/17
New York Times
29/1/17
WWE
27/4/17
Medium
17/8/17
HBO
 26/8/17
FC Barcelona
  26/8/17
Real Madrid
31/8/17
WikiLeaks

Who and what is OurMine?

The group have made a name for themselves by targeting high profile individuals and organisations on social media, but who are they?

Rather than hackers, OurMine describes itself as a security group. They are best described as “grey hat” hackers. Not quite good, but not quite bad.

They break into these accounts in order to highlight security flaws and often use these hacks in order to advertise their security services.

According to Wired, the group charges companies anywhere from $30 to $5,000 to check their current security measures.

The identities of those behind OurMine are unknown. Although, they are believed to be three young people based in Saudi Arabia. This is according to records posted by internet activists Anonymous after the two groups fell out.