LulzSec (LulzSecurity) Hacker Group Raids CIA.gov Website With DDoS Attack
The CIA's (Central Intelligence Agency) website has become the victim in the latest rash of attacks initiated by the renowned LulzSec hacker group.
The famous LulzSec (aka Lulz Security or The Lulz Boat) group of hackers have a big stick and are not afraid to swing it to the way of websites belonging to large corporations and now U.S. Government agencies.
LulzSec has made the news on many occasions, especially in the last two weeks, when they first hacked the PBS website to post a fake story about rapper Tupac being alive and then set their sails to attack a Sony Pictures website. In their latest conquests, they have chosen to raise the stakes by attacking not only the U.S. Senate website over the weekend, but yesterday LulzSec made an announcement via Twitter that they had taken down the CIA.gov website as shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. - LulzSec Twitter post announcing take-down of CIA.gov website.
So far LulzSec has made their motives for attacking specific sites, such as PBS and Sony, well known via their website (Lulzsec.com) and Twitter. Allegedly, the attack against CIA.gov had nothing to do with LulzSec having a gripe about the CIA but it was to prove a point in response to a taunting Twitterer, Quadrapodacone, calling LulzSec 'soft' for attacking small-time targets.
It is no doubt that the CIA is a big fish and LulzSec may face serious repercussions if and when they are caught for attacking the website.
Presumably, LulzSec planned to attack the CIA.gov website utilizing a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack which essentially floods the site with heavy traffic until it's sever becomes unresponsive. Officials have confirmed that all the attack was hardly 'hacking', but indeed one that flooded the site with heavy network traffic causing the server to become overwhelmed at the time. DDoS attacks have long been a common method for hackers having an urge to bring-down a website and to this day it is still very effective.
The LulzSec is the hacker group of the moment to keep an eye on due to their consistent repeated efforts in attacking websites small and large. No one knows who will be the next target unless you 'follow' LulzSec on Twitter.
Do you suspect the authorities catching up to the LulzSec group of hackers anytime soon or will they have free run on the internet to attack whom they please?