elections are a secure and insulated process. Moves against government websites potentially aim to destroy faith among voters that U.S. “Their efforts seem to be coordinated with the Russian government as part of their FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) campaign around the geopolitical conflict.”Īside from a temporary takedown that can disrupt operations, there is also a reputational cost to DDoS attacks. Their attacks, however, appear to be opportunistic DDoS campaigns aimed at attracting media coverage,” says Research Director Santiago Cortes Diaz. “We have been following Killnet for years and have seen a marked increased activity in the last few weeks. Research Killnet on the Alien Labs Open Threat Exchange (OTX),Īmong the largest open threat intelligence sharing communities in the world.

Killnet has a long history of successfully attacking both public and private organizations and businesses. While most of the websites were restored within 48 hours, these volumetric attacks can leave even the most secure sites paralyzed and susceptible to further damage.ĪT&T Alien Labs, the threat intelligence arm of AT&T Cybersecurity, suggests politically motivated cyber strikes such as the ones that hit web sites in October are nothing new. Multiple reports in the media, including in Bloomberg US Edition, allege that Russian-associated cybercrime group Killnet is responsible for a series of distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks during the week of October 6 that took several state government and other websites offline.

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