DOJ Takes to Twitter to Address DDOS Attacks on Gov't Websites

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 07:56:03 PM EST
Tags: Anonymous (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

The Department of Justice is tweeting its response to the attacks on its website by Anonymous.

Here, here and here:

The DOJ web server hosting http://justice.gov is experiencing a significant increase in activity, resulting in a degradation in service.

The department is working to ensure the website is available while we investigate the origins of this activity... ...which is being treated as a malicious act until we can fully identify the root cause of the disruption.

These are the first tweets by DOJ in over 10 days. [More...]

Some Anonymous members have put up a You Tube video about the attacks. Since no one speaks for Anonymous because it has no leader, it's not clear how many Anonymous members this represents.

As YourAnonNews reminds us, this is not a hacking into government websites but a DDOS attack:

#opmegaupload is not a "hack" of websites. It is a DDOS attack, where multiple computers flood a system forcing it to shut down

< Anonymous Takes Down Dept.of Justice Website | Newt Goes Off on CNN's John King for Marriage Question >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

DOJ Takes to Twitter to Address DDOS Attacks on Gov't Websites | 6 comments (6 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

It's not just the front page (none / 0) (#1)
by Peter G on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 08:17:02 PM EST

I have a number of "back pages" of http://www.usdoj.gov bookmarked. U.S. Attorney's Manual, links to U.S. Attorney's Offices around the country, Solicitor General's archive of Supreme Court briefs, etc. Even obscure ones like the International Prisoner Transfer Treaty program. None is responding as of 9:15 pm EST Thursday. Local site for our district office is working, albeit slowly.

I wondered if the AUSAS could (none / 0) (#2)
by Jeralyn on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 08:40:50 PM EST

get into their email after it hit. USDOJ.gov goes to justice.gov. But at 4:30, PACER shows a filing in one of my cases, so I guess they can.

The US Attorneys site for the SDNY was also not reachable for a while this afternoon.

And the back pages of the FBI were down for a while too. I don't thing they hit the DEA, but its website is at justice.gov/dea and it is loading pretty slow too.


Peter (none / 0) (#3)
by Edger on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 08:45:35 PM EST

that doesn't necessarily mean the site was hacked.

usdoj.gov, dea.gov, ulex.gov, lexs.gov, and firstfreedom.gov all use the same IP address: 149.101.46.71

See http://whois.domaintools.com/149.101.46.71

justice.gov also is not responding.

It looks to me that the IT people have taken the web servers down - they are not responding to ping's either...


Ping is normally blocked (none / 0) (#5)
by BTAL on Fri Jan 20, 2012 at 07:17:48 AM EST

along with traceroutes at the router/switch as part of DOS attack prevention.

Just as an FYI


: Yes... (none / 0) (#6)
by Edger on Fri Jan 20, 2012 at 09:00:04 AM EST

the sites seem to be at least intermittently responding this morning...

Flooding (none / 0) (#4)
by koshembos on Thu Jan 19, 2012 at 10:59:23 PM EST

The attack on DOJ's website is commonplace. DOJ should have been better prepared. This doesn't justify attacks by a shady group who might be, for instance, the Iranian government.