Georgian Blogger Targeted in Widespread Internet Attack
An apparently Tbilisi-based anti-Russian blogger with an online name ‘Cyxymu’ (Sukhumi) was a target of a coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which also hit services at Twitter, Google, LiveJournal and Facebook, according to a senior industry figure.
“It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him [“Cyxymu”] to keep his voice from being heard,” Max Kelly, Facebook’s chief security officer, told CNET News, a technology news website.
The online attack on one individual, who has accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Google’s Blogger and YouTube services, made Twitter unavailable for some time on Thursday and also had an impact on Facebook, LiveJournal and Google’s Blogger.
“The people who are coordinating this attack, the criminals, are definitely determined and using a lot of resources,” Kelly said.
A Russian-language LiveJournal page of ‘Cyxymu’ was down on August 7, but it is possible to retrieve the page through Google cache.
A post made on Thursday evening by ‘Cyxymu’ reads: “It is obvious this is a special attack on me or on Georgians.”
“I receive hundreds of spam on my e-mail… Spam is also being sent from my e-mail too, inviting people to go on my blog,” the post reads.
And on his Twitter page, ‘Cyxymu’ wrote that he was a target of the attack and apologized for inconvenience.
DDoS attack came on the eve of anniversary of the August war.
A coordinated DDoS attack was carried out against the Georgian government and some news websites (including on Civil.ge) during the last year’s war.
Facebook chief security officer declined to speculate on who was behind the Thursday’s attacks.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
