Drudge, Downed by Cyberattack, Suspects Government Involvement
Readers were unable to access the pioneering powerhouse news website Drudge Report for an hour and a half on Thursday, due to what site founder Matt Drudge says was a denial-of-service attack.
On Twitter Thursday night in the midst of the attack and shutdown, Drudge questioned whether the U.S. government might be behind the attack, which he said was the largest in the website’s history. Later, Drudge said the attack came from “thousands” of sources.
Attacking coming from 'thousands' of sources. Of course none of them traceable to Fort Meade...
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 30, 2016
Is the US government attacking DRUDGE REPORT?
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) December 30, 2016
Biggest DDoS since site's inception. VERY suspicious routing [and timing].
Ace investigation reporter Sharyl Attkisson responded to one of Drudge’s tweets, bringing up the fact that Drudge has been targeted by the left as a “fake news” site as part of a wider effort to censor and discredit right-of-center news organizations in the wake of the election of Donald Trump.
The disruption came the same night that the Obama administration issued sanctions against Russia over unproven allegations of hacking, a claim toward which Drudge has shown skepticism.
The Drudge Report was one of the few news platforms that gave candidate Donald Trump fair coverage during the presidential primary, thereby incurring the wrath of the establishment Republicans as well as the Democrat establishment.
At press time, there was no firm confirmation of who or what caused the attack.
