Fergie's Tech Blog

Hacktivism Watch: Political Network Attacks Increase

Erica Naone writes on the MIT Technology Review:

When armed conflict flared up between Russia and Georgia last summer, the smaller country also found itself subject to a crippling, coordinated Internet attack. An army of PCs controlled by hackers with strong ties to Russian hacking groups flooded Georgian sites with dummy requests, making it near impossible for them to respond to legitimate traffic. The attacks came fast and furious, at times directing 800 megabits of data per second at a targeted website.

This type of politically motivated Internet attack is becoming increasingly common, says Jose Nazario, manager of security research for Arbor Networks. "The problem is sweeping and has changed over the years," Nazario said during a presentation at the security conference SOURCE Boston this week. He noted that the frequency of these attacks and the number of targets being hit have grown steadily over the past few years.

posted by Fergie @ 3/13/2009 05:51:00 PM