It’s been a rip-roaring 24 hours or so in the hacktivist world, with dozens of Swedish government websites being forced offline in suspected DDoS attacks; Armenia and Azerbaijan engaging in Cyber-Wars, and the hacker group AntiSec stealing over 12 million Apple device IDs from the FBI, later posting a million of them online.

Swedish Websites Hacked

Among the  Swedish websites hacked were the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Armed Forces, and Sweden’s Court Administration, each apparently taken down by supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy. Shortly after the sites were forced offline, a number of Anonymous-linked Assange supporters claimed responsibility on Twitter.

Niklas Englung, head of digital media for Sweden’s Armed Forces, told reporters that the source of the DDoS attacks was unclear, although he noted that several pro-Assange Twitter accounts had taken responsibility.

These latest DDoS attacks come just weeks after a string of previous hits on UK government websites, which were apparently in response to an earlier attack on WikiLeaks itself that put the whistleblower site out of action for almost a week.

Armenia vs. Azerbaijan Cyber Wars

Over in Azerbaijan, it’s believed that a group of Armenian hackers were responsible for taking down several websites in that country, including its President’s and Supreme Court’s websites, in protest over the controversial pardoning of an Azeri soldier who had previously been convicted of killing an Armenian with an axe.

It’s believed as many as fifteen Azeri government websites were attacked yesterday, but it gets even more absurd than that. Early this morning, the ArmeniaNow website revealed that the attacks prompted a vicious retaliation by Azebaijan, who responded by subjecting a number of Armenian websites to DDoS attacks in return:

“A group of hackers calling themselves the ‘Azerbaijani Defacers’ took down the Armenian president’s official website today,” reported the Hurriyet Daily News this morning.

Device IDs Stolen

As if taking down websites isn’t enough to keep them occupied, a group of hacktivists also found time to get up to further mischief, humiliating Apple and the FBI in the process.

We reported earlier how AntiSec pulled off an audacious heist to steal over 12 million Apple UDIDs, posting over a million of them online. Apparently, the UDIDs were swiped from an FBI agent’s laptop. While it remains unclear how Apple are going to remedy the problem, users can at least check to see if their device UDID is among those that have been exposed.

TNW has just created an online tool that allows users to enter their UDID/UUID so it can be checked against those released on PasteBin. Anyone with an Apple device is encouraged to check, as UDIDs are often tied to personal information including cell phone numbers, names and addresses, which means that there is a definite risk of identity theft.