(Photo credit: Twitter/UG)

A hacker who claims ties to the Underground Nazi Hacktivist Group (UGNazi) says the collective is responsible for yesterday's Twitter outage. The hacker, who goes by the handle Cosmos, told the Telegraph she was surprised how easy it was to take down the service. 

“It wasn't really difficult at all, I myself honestly thought Twitter would be more protected from a DDoS Attack, but I guess not,” she said.

Twitter denied the outage was the result of an attack, referring back to its cascaded bug explanation. According to the group's Twitter handle, UGNazi is based in New York City. In the past, the group has been affiliated with LulzSec.

Cosmos offered differing motives for the attack to various press outlets. In an email to SearchSecurity.com, she claimed it was in protest of Twitter’s support for the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which calls for sharing network traffic information and data about cybersecurity threats between the U.S. authorities and private companies.

However, Cosmos claimed fewer political aspirations in her conversation with the Telegraph, telling the paper:

“The attack was mainly for the ‘lulz’, it goes to show what we are capable of.”

So, which is it? Because if you ask us, the outage was about as amusing as UGNazi's Twitter avatar, which is to say not at all.