DoS Attack Rains on Texas Gov Internet Parade
Recently Texas Governor Rick Perry kicked off his 2010 re-election campaign, and even arranged for an online rally scheduled for yesterday at 11:30 a.m. Central time. Billed as "Talkin' Texas," supporters were asked to visit the website and participate in the 10-minute rally, however, according to Perry staff members, hackers rained on the governor's online parade by kicking off a campaign of their own: a denial-of-service attack.
“Today’s ‘Talkin' Texas’ webcast by Gov. Perry was deliberately interrupted by a denial-of-service attack, preventing countless users from logging in to view the Governor’s remarks," said Gov. Perry Spokesman Mark Miner. "This planned and coordinated attack was political sabotage, and we are working to identify those responsible for this illegal activity. Before the attack was initiated, more than 22,000 users were able to log in and view Gov. Perry’s complete remarks, which will be distributed shortly.”
Local Austin news studio KXAN painted a different picture of the situation however, reporting that the problem didn't resemble a successful DDoS attack. Instead, the reporters pulled up an error reading "unable to connect to database server." Unlike slow or inaccessible connections experienced with DDoS attacks, IDF News explained that the database error can occur using the Drupal content-management platform.
With that said, it's possible that the website administrators knew the supposed attack was merely a database problem, and that the campaign simply spun the news to gain nationwide attention. If that is indeed the case, then the plan worked, and it was simply politics as usual.
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Who cares.
Who cares.
True that. I don't care much for who wins in Texas as I don't live there.
Many software companies blame security problems caused by their faulty engineering on "those bad hackers" so why should the politicians be any different with IT problems? Now they just need to award a million-dollar "security improvement contract" to one of their favorite constituents.
Many software companies blame security problems caused by their faulty engineering on "those bad hackers" so why should the politicians be any different with IT problems?
because the hackers are attacking a public convention. anyway it is increadably difficult to protect a public site from attacks. if the security protocals are to tough, no one will visit the site.
this goverment is full of liers.
Technically, it was a DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attack. A standard DoS attack is almost completely ineffective anymore as most service providers will automatically block such an attack, not to mention that all commercial firewalls (and even some routers) will automatically block a DoS attack. Interestingly enough, a DoS attack is still useful for something. WIPS systems (Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems) use a sort of DoS attack as a countermeasure to neutralize rogue APs (wireless Access Points not installed or authorized by the organization who owns or controls the network) by spamming the rogue AP with a signal that forces it to perpetually re-authenticate.
[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]Technically, it was a DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attack.citation]You just taught me something. I had always thought of DDoS as being "dedicated" vs "distributed." I'm not sure how I got that one mixed up.
As for the politicians, do we really expect them to know wtf is going on with the interwebs? They hardly have a grasp on reality as it is. If it doesn't have anything to do with their private jet or their lobbyist kickbacks, then they're just going by the numbers in the "say this if you do something stupid" playbook.
PS: Tom's needs some new pictures to associate with its articles. I think I've seen that Dr. Evil image in 25 different articles now, none of which were related to "Scott", "Dr. Evil", or "the question mark."
The argument that it was DDoS seems suspect to begin with, I mean who would really care enough to bother...I mean that guy is small potatoes.
The argument that it was DDoS seems suspect to begin with, I mean who would really care enough to bother...I mean that guy is small potatoes.
DDoS does not imply a massive attack by a highly coordinated and sophisticated attacker. A script kiddie is capable of pulling off a DDoS using a handful of zombies. Watch the news for a few days, we'll find out how good the attacker was by whether or not they are identified.
I doubt that this is a DDos attack. Sounds like their old servers couldn't handle the traffic. Time to ditch the P3 boys.
Who would really launch this type of attack against a governor that nobody cares about.
Most politicans don't know a thing about the internets.
Sounds like this guy is trying to get some press.
I think that there are plenty of people with the time to go ahead and hack a Texas Governor's site. DDoS attacks have been hard to stop but there is a new software that prevents these attacks called XyberShield, www.xybershield.com. I would check out their site for more information on what they do.