The website of the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been taken offline following a cyber-attack, BBC News reported.
Soca confirmed that soca.gov.uk had suffered a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
A spokesman said the site was taken offline at 22:30 on Wednesday May 2, but that the attack did not "pose a security risk to the organisation".
Soca has recently shut down 36 websites believed to be selling stolen credit card information. Soca would not confirm if it knew the source of the attack or the motive.
A DDoS attack is a common technique in which sites are overloaded with data requests, causing them to fall over. Last month, Soca was part of a joint effort with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to shut websites associated with selling stolen financial information.
Soca said 2.5 million items of compromised data were recovered, preventing a potential fraud estimated at £500m. The website has been targeted in the past by members of "hacktivist" group LulzSec. In June 2011, they forced the site offline using similar tactics.
Alleged members of the group were subsequently arrested in connection with the attack.
