Anonymous accuses CloudFire of supporting Isis websites

The hacktivist group have claimed that the Silicon Valley firm is aiding terrorists by preventing cyber attacks

The hacktivist group Anonymous have declared war on Isis following the Paris attacks (Getty)

Anonymous has accused a Silicon Valley firm of protecting some Isis-linked websites from cyber attacks.

The hacktivist group has claimed that CloudFlare is allowing terrorists to fight against attacks from Anonymous by preventing distributed denial of service attacks - where websites are overrun with traffic, forcing them to shut down - on websites linked to Isis.

CloudFlare offers customers tools including protection including a service which routes connections through its own network during a DDoS.

Anonymous claims that feature is helping pro-ISIS websites to avoid attacks and to help keep propaganda sites online.

A recent report claims that CloudFlare are protecting 40 websites linked to terrorism, including 37 which post pro-ISIS propaganda.

The company has said that there are millions of pages in its service, making it difficult to take any down in response to requests, but that it complies with proper legal . It has also said that authorities often want the company to keep sites up so that they can continue to be analysed.

“I’d suggest this was armchair analysis by kids – it’s hard to take seriously. Anonymous uses us for some of its sites, despite pressure from some quarters for us to take Anonymous sites offline,” Matthew Prince, CloudFlare’s CEO, told The Register.

“Even if we were hosting sites for ISIS, it wouldn’t be of any help to us,” added Mr Price. “I should imagine those kinds of people pay with stolen credit cards and so that’s a negative for us.”

Anonymous declared a cyberwar with ISIS just after the Paris attacks, with one Twitter user saying, “Make no mistake: Anonymous is at war with Daesh. We won’t stop opposing Islamic State.”

The campaign named #OpISIS is aiming to shut down websites and Twitter accounts used by ISIS to recruit new members, and has since published a list of people it believes to be ISIS members.