Major Swedish news sites spreading "false propaganda" down after DDoS attack
Source: smashdig.com
A number of Swedish news sites have been down, or partly down, throughout Saturday night in what appears to be a coordinated hacker attack, according to reports from SVT Nyheter and Ekot.
The attack appears to be a so-called distributed denial-of-serivce (DDoS) attack, Expressen’s acting editor-in-chief Karin Olsson tells Ekot.
Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet, Sydsvenskan, Helsingborgs Dagblad and Dagens industri are among the news sites that have experienced problems. Some of the sites are back up while others are still down. The web sites of the Swedish public service companies have not been affected by the attack.
It’s yet unclear who’s behind the attack, Ekot reports.
Shortly before the technical issues started an anonymous Twitter account posted threats of coming attacks against Swedish news sites spreading ‘‘false propaganda.’’
The following days attacks against the Swedish goverment and media spreading false propaganda will be targetted.
— J (@_notJ) March 19, 2016
This is what happends when you spread false propaganda.
Aftonbladet.se #offline@Aftonbladet
— J (@_notJ) March 19, 2016
‘‘It’s of course very serious that Swedish news sites are attacked. But that somebody wants to stop news coverage confirms its value,’’ Expressen’s editor-in-chief Thomas Mattsson writes on Twitter.
Swedish police has launched an investigation, Anders Ygeman, minister for home affairs, says in a tweet.
Source: smashdig.com
Swedish newspaper websites shut down in hacker attack
From: phys.org
Several experts quoted in the media suggested the sites were subjected to distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks, in which hackers hijack multiple computers to send a flood of data to the target, crippling its computer system
The online editions of Sweden's main newspapers were knocked out for several hours by unidentified hackers at the weekend, police said Sunday as they launched an investigation.
The attack was "extremely dangerous and serious," the head of the Swedish Media Publishers' Association, Jeanette Gustafsdotter, told Swedish news agency TT.
"To threaten access to news coverage is a threat to democracy," she said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which either partially or totally shut down the sites of Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri, Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad on Saturday evening from about 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) until about 11:00 pm (2200 GMT).
Several experts quoted in the media suggested the sites were subjected to distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks, in which hackers hijack multiple computers to send a flood of data to the target, crippling its computer system.
Police said in a statement they had launched an investigation, and Swedish intelligence was also being kept abreast of developments.
An anonymous threat was issued on a Twitter account shortly before the attack. The account was attributed to J@_notJ.
"The following days attacks against the Swedish government and media spreading false propaganda will be targeted," the first tweet read.
An hour later, a second tweet read: "This is what happens when you spread false propaganda. Aftonbladet.se #offline".
Source: phys.org
