New Zealand was hit by an internet meltdown after its netizens rushed to see hacked photos of naked celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kirsten Dunst.

Spark New Zealand, formerly known as Telecom, the country's main internet provider, crashed from the weight of the enormous traffic.

Like Us on Facebook

Reports said the internet meltdown on September 5 was caused by users clicking links they believed would take them to the nude photos.

The links, however, installed malware triggering a crippling internet attack. The link directed users to download a "video converter" that was really malicious software or malware.

Last Friday night, Spark informed its customers via Twitter and Facebook they were attending to the situation right away.

Spark tweeted that when people clicking on some links installed malware "generating a high amount of traffic to overseas sites."

Computer security specialists Trend Micro released alerts after the New Zealand internet outage warning users not to click links related to hacked nude photos of celebrities.

"Our scanning brought to our attention some freshly-concocted schemes targeting those looking for the photos borne from the aforementioned leak. The first threat we found hails from Twitter, in the form of a tweet being posted with hashtags that contain the name of one of the leak's victims - Jennifer Lawrence," said Trend Micro.

Authorities in New Zealand said they don't have an idea who was behind the internet attack that came from outside the country.

TagsNew Zealand internet meltdown, celebrity nude photo leaks, Internet outage