Massive Cyber Attack freezes Donations in Florida Amendment 2 Fight
Filed by: Waymon Hudson
October 31, 2008 7:30 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/10/massive_cyber_attack_freezes_donations_i.phpFlorida Red & Blue, the campaign to defeat Florida's Amendment 2, has confirmed that its website,
SayNo2.com, was hit by a massive cyber invasion called a "distributed denial of service attack" (DoS) that took down the site for at least an hour early Thursday morning. This cyber attack came on the heels of another attack on the "No on 8" website in California late Wednesday.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a denial-of-service attack, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting a computer and its network connection, or the computers and network of the sites, an attacker may be able to prevent someone from accessing e-mail, Web sites, online accounts (banking, etc.), or other services that rely on the affected computer. The most common and obvious type of DoS attack occurs when an attacker "floods" a network with information.
This attack was particularly damaging to the Florida Amendment 2 fight, since Thursday at midnight was the last time the campaign could accept contributions under Florida election laws.
