Canadian sites hacked to display cartoon banana

A cyberattack rendered Canadian government websites intermittently unavailable or overtaken by the image of a cartoon banana on Sunday, according to multiple reports.

By Tuesday afternoon, most of the government agencies affected — ranging from Canada’s Parliament and Supreme Court to the Ottawa and Toronto police departments — said their websites were functioning again.

{mosads}A Turkey-based Twitter user under the name @AerithXOR claimed responsibility, boasting an affiliation with the hacking collective Anonymous. The websites were hacked, the person said, in support of an Ottawa teenager who was charged last year with calling in fake threats throughout North America, prompting police in several areas to send out officers to investigate.

The New York Times reported the pattern of the hacks did not resemble those Anonymous normally follows.

The hacker claimed to have information that would exonerate the accused teen and alleged Canadian law enforcement has been eavesdropping on the teen’s home.

The teen’s father believes the hacker’s evidence proves his son was framed.

Accompanying the image of the cartoon banana on the hacked police department homepage was a message that read, in part, “We can destroy everything, this is a flex of our power. Please, test us. You know what we want.”

The email address of the officer conducting the investigation, Joel Demore, was also published, encouraging people to email him to “#DemandChange.”

Government agencies are increasingly the target of hackers looking to cause disruption or steal confidential information.

U.S. agencies from the White House down to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have all been compromised in recent months.