WikiLeaks Suffers a Second More Powerful DoS Attack

[Google]

https://www.infosecisland.com/blogvi...oS-Attack.html


Anthony M. Freed

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WikiLeaks is currently experiencing a second wave denial of service attack (DoS) that is reported to be several time more powerful than the first attack that began Sunday prior to the release of thousands of classified documents.

The WikiLeaks Twitter account displays the messages, "We are currently under another DDoS attack," and "DDoS attack now exceeding 10 Gigabits a second," which dwarfs the 2-4 Gbps attack perpetrated by self-proclaimed "patriot hacker" known only as The Jester (th3j35t3r).

Today's DoS could be originating from a new attacker, as evidenced by the increased magnitude. The Jester's technique is a DoS application-level attack that exploits an inherent flaw in the majority of servers, and can be executed with on single low-spec machine.

Demonstrations of The Jester's DoS attack in action can be found in two videos ( Video 1, Video 2) provided exclusively to Infosec Island during the course of several interviews with the hactivist earlier this year.

The 10 Gbps strength of today's offensive may indicate that it is a distributed denial of service (DDoS), utilizing a vast number machines similar to those used in zombie botnet attacks. The increased magnitude could also be due to the volume of packets from a limited number of machines, or the attack could be a combination of both scenarios.

The big question is exactly who is perpetrating today's onslaught.

WikiLeaks has incited a great deal of ire from a number of interested parties since the release of reams of diplomatic communications, now dubbed "Cablegate."

The Chinese have blocked access to WikiLeaks, their mirrored sites, and other outlets for the stolen records, after some unflattering revelations regarding the Chinese government's connection to cyber security events like the "Aurora" hacking of Google accounts last year.

Senator Joe Lieberman, after condemning the leaks but stopping short of classifying WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization, recommended that WikiLekas be shut down by "all legal means" - which can be broadly interpreted when dealing with sensitive national security issues.

New York's Rep. Peter King was not as kind, stating that WikiLeaks is in fact "engaged in terrorist activity," and that in releasing the classified materials, the group is "enabling terrorists to kill Americans."

Former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton expressed perhaps the boldest opinions, stating yesterday that the leadership of the WikiLeaks organization should in fact be charged with treason - a crime punishable by death - and that "America's cyber warfare capabilities need practice, and I think they ought to practice on Wikileaks!"

Whoever may be behind today's DoS attacks on WikiLeaks, their efforts will ultimately have no effect on the dissemination of the classified documents, nor will it stem the potential diplomatic backlash from the information the materials reveal.


Only posting this because I found it interesting and thought you guys would be interested.

[Irishmitch]

I dont get why "The Man" Just dosent shut the site down

[C0FFINCASE]

Wikileaks is a terrible site. Its not serving the function of a "watch dog" entity any more, all its doing is doing what it can to grab sensitive information and ruin US foreign relations and put US service men and political officials abroad in danger. The soldier that sold out to them ought to be shot and the domain should be seized by national security.

[Lostintehdark]

th3j35t3r also got busted, the cops were in servailence of his house BEFORE this, and they weren't positive that the guy they were focusing their attention on was him, until he sent off the second attack at wikileaks.

Last I remember he was in custody and was saying that if he could earn 10k$ for a lawyer, he would release his program "XerXes" to the public. I think he knew he wouldn't be able to get that money in time, so he is hoping for donations that don't get him to 10k$ because he DID say before that he is the "Nicest hacker" and he only takes on cyber terrorism sites and what not, and he thought about bringing up a group of annons where nobody knew eachother, each in the position of this program taking out sites, but he decided against that due to the fact that he would believe that he's "Handing a gun to the enemy"


a program like that would take awhile to build, I hope that he keeps that program to himself and dies with its secrets.


tl;dr = hacker got busted, in custody; offered to leak that program if he gets 10k$ (which he'd spend on a laywer against his charges)

[DeadBySunrise]

I think it is.

I find it insulting to my intelligence that the actual US Government has this "awwww shucks" attitude against one computer nerd.

If they wanted the website down, they could do it.

The US Government owns the backend of all .org domains, so you're telling me they can't commandeer ONE website?

I very much doubt the actual US Government is losing a war against information secrecy from one domain.

I also don't believe any of the "anonyminity & encryption" bullshit the Wikileaks founder says about his domain. There is no anonymous internet, and if you publish secret documents online, you can be easily traced.

No leaked documents regarding the 911 conspiracies? Just a bunch of watered down NSA pager messages?

And how exactly did the NSA "lose" the data regarding the 500,000 pager messages? Isn't the NSA the chief guardian & protector of US military telecommunications for the US Government?

Seems like a deliberate scam the US Government set up to catch the real perpetrators of distributing classified information.

All seems like a publicity stunt to gain street cred from the media to bust the REAL leakers of classified information.

I bet most of the people in the US Military who leaked classified information to Wikileaks were murdered immediatly as soon as they "uploaded" their files. Or at the very least, injected with some sort of uncurable cancer virus.

I think it's smart, but it's pretty easy to see through the facade...

[Bman]

It sounds like everyone is hating on wikileaks. I honestly think it's doing the USA a favor.

I can't really explain why, I just feel wikileaks is a good thing (to an extent)