Peter Schiff’s site hacked during moneybomb
Apparently somebody out there doesn’t like the prospect of Senator Peter Schiff. Schiff’s campaign had planned a 24-hour “moneybomb” online fundraiser for Nov 5th. But hackers took down the site right before it got started.
Schiff, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, had planned a “moneybomb” — a one-day online fundraising blitz — for today, but just minutes before midnight, when the moneybomb was set to start, the website went down, his brother, Andrew Schiff, said.
“These are coordinated attacks,” Andrew Schiff said in a brief phone interview.
It wasn’t the first time the website has been hit, Andrew Schiff said. The campaign had been targeted several times in the past and recently upgraded its website.
“They attacked us many times so we got more sophisticated,” Andrew Schiff said. “We just spent thousands of dollars on internet security.”
It’s important to realize that hackers always have a motive they target a site. They’re trying to do one of two things; make money, or make a statement.
A profit-motivated attack usually involves injecting malicious code into sites. Users then download the code unknowingly, resulting in pop-up ads (adware), or worse – a keyword logger, which records sensitive data like bank logins.
The point is that profit-motivated attacks usually don’t cause sites to crash. That would defeat the purpose – spreading the virus to as many PCs as possible. So it seems likely that the attack on SchiffForSenate.com was politically-motivated.
According to an article in MIT Tech Review, politically-motivated cyber attacks are increasingly common.
A fiscally-responsible U.S. Senator?!
Schiff’s campaign got screwed here, missing out on a major fundraising event. And it may prove to be a recurring theme. Think about how far certain groups would go to keep a guy like Schiff out of Senate.
That’s why I made a contribution to Schiff’s campaign after hearing about the attack, even though I missed the original moneybomb. You can donate here if interested.
Preemptive tech-rebuttal
There are plenty of other explanations for why the site went down. But the fact that this attack occurred just minutes before a major fundraising campaign should set off alarm bells.
And while Schiff’s server could have been overwhelmed by the moneybomb itself, it’s unlikely. His organization runs many large and heavily-trafficked sites. They have a lot of experience dealing with traffic spikes. Not to mention the fact that they referred to the attacks as “coordinated”.
An attack by parties who oppose Schiff’s run for Senate seems like the most likely explanation. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, given the ugly nature of politics today.
If so, it probably would have been a Denial-of-Service (DOS) attack. This technique takes down a site by overloading its server with requests. And from what I’ve read, it’s not very easy to pull off. To generate sufficient traffic to bring down a big site, you need control over thousands of “zombie PCs”, which have been previously infected with viruses/worms.
Apparently one can buy such services on the black market, but we’re talking about felony offenses here. So you’d need strong motivation to do so. Who’s that afraid of Peter Schiff?
3 Comments
Chris Dodd’s overlords had something to do with it. Michael Moore got heat from those folks because he went after Dodd is his latest movie. Schiff seemed to imply as much when talking about Dodd’s latest sham regulation bill. Whoever controls Dodd wants to keep him in place because he is doling out the goodies and can be relied upon to avoid crossing certain lines.
Dodd’s bill is a show horse. I don’t even know why it’s getting any press, other than as a discredit to Dodd. He’s using his lawmaking position to start his campaign early. I would not put it past someone who is willing to do that to try to sabotage the campaigns of his likely opponents for 2010. I hope that CT voters wise up and see through what Dodd is doing.
this is a very enlightening discussion on the dollar and gold as a result of the Federal Reserve’s continued attempts to debase our currency and continue to try to solve a debt crisis with more debt: Gold Price Headed to $2,300 on Hyperinflation Risk?
this is a section from it: “The gold price, and the price of other hard assets, is rising as more investors across the globe ask themselves how these deficits and debts will be resolved. Furthermore, new congressional initiative aimed at politicizing the Fed would give the Secretary of the Treasury a veto over Section 13(3) governing emergency action by the Federal Reserve – and effectively taking away the independence of the central bank. Setting aside discussion of the power that the Federal Reserve currently has, if politics enters the arena of monetary policy, then the U.S. dollar’s fate is sealed. Political leaders who reflexively seek political refuge in populist pork-barrel and loose fiscal policies during difficult economic times may soon have the same power – and ballot-box pressure – over monetary policy.”