WikiLeaks Down After ‘72-Hour DDoS’

WikiLeaks has been smashed by a 72-hour distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, according to the group’s official Twitter feed.

“WikiLeaks has been under sustained DDOS attacks over the last 72 hours. http://www.wikileaks.org is good, http://wikileaks.org is flooded,” a tweet read.

At the time of publication, the latter site was still down. The downforeveryoneorjustme.com service confirmed it was out of action for everyone.

The attack was taking place at the same time as a hit on The Pirate Bay, which knocked the file-sharing service offline for over 24 hours.

WikiLeaks has not been making many headlines of late, although its founder Julian Assange is currently waiting to hear whether he will be extradited to Sweden over rape allegations. His case is due to be decided on by the UK Supreme Court soon.

Private firms paying for DDoS

It remains unclear who was behind the attacks on WikiLeaks and the Pirate Bay. André Stewart, president at Corero Network Security, told TechWeekEurope that private organisations were “definitely” paying others to carry out DDoS attacks on others “We’re seeing different types of possible attackers from what was the norm. The waters are so murky,” Stewart said.

“It’s definitely a reality, it is very prevalent in Asia… It doesn’t happen as much in Europe and the US.

“We’ve also seen some governments have given the green light for cyber protection units to counter attack. It means good guys are now using weapons.” The US is building cyberweapons, and the UK government has admitted doing the same.

The infamous Russian Business Network is one organisation that is known to sell cybercrime services. It was suspected of involvement in an attack on Georgia’s internet infrastructure following the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008.

DDoS attacks have been ramping up this year and it appears the explosion of hits has only just begun, as downloads of attack tools have spiked in 2012. During this month alone, there have been hits on the websites of Theresa May, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), The Pirate Bay, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, protest group Avaaz and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), amongst others.

“It’s not just high-profile, politically connected organisations at risk,” Darren Anstee, solutions architect for EMEA at Arbor Networks, told TechWeekEurope. “Any enterprise operating online (which applies to just about any type and size of business operating in the UK) can become a target because of who they are, what they sell, who they partner with or for any other real or perceived affiliations. Nobody is immune.”

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