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Cyber attack on  Archive Of Our Own :-  https://archiveofourown.org/

Attack description :

Another US organization affected by DDOS attack, as claimed by Anonymous Sudan, is Archive Of Our Own  (https://archiveofourown.org/) Archive of Our Own is an open source, non-profit repository of fanwork and other user-contributed fanwork. DoS and DDoS activities are specifically designed to interfere with the normal functioning of networks, services, or servers by inundating them with an excessive amount of internet traffic. Although these incidents can cause temporary disruptions and potentially result in financial losses, they can be effectively managed by implementing appropriate response measures.

Message Sent from Anonymous Sudan :

Message to AO3 admins and fans : 

We bear the good news that we will continue attacking AO3 and will not stop anytime soon. It makes 0 difference to us, only person harmed here are the pedophilic admins of AO3 that are corrupting children with their disgusting propaganda that goes against all forms of nature and human morality. We will not allow your disgusting site to continue normalizing such immoral and detestable things, like the smuts about rape, pedophilia, LGBTQ, sexual exploitation, human trafficking and every other immoral illness known to man. We can bypass any protection you put, we will make sure the site goes off for the longest time possible as your “experts” scratch their heads cluelessly to find a solution. You will be prevented from corrupting our children, and you will not be able to do anything about it. This is also a warning to any sick corporation that aims to corrupt our youth with their propaganda. 

Finally, “experts” of AO3, we hope you enjoy your extra work hours. Fans of AO3, you only motivate us to continue attacking with your insults and shallow threats, it doesn’t harm us and won’t make us stop.

Mitigations :

  1. Network Monitoring: Employing robust network monitoring tools allows organizations to identify abnormal traffic patterns and potential attacks in real time. This enables swift action and mitigation.
  2. Traffic Filtering: Employing firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) can help filter out malicious traffic and reduce the impact of attacks.
  3. Bandwidth Scaling: Collaborating with internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure sufficient bandwidth capacity helps absorb the impact of attacks and maintain service availability.
  4. Load Balancing: Distributing network traffic across multiple servers can help alleviate the strain caused by attacks and improve overall system resilience.
  5. Incident Response Planning: Developing an incident response plan that includes procedures to detect, respond, and recover from DoS or DDoS attacks is essential. This plan should involve key stakeholders and outline communication channels, mitigation strategies, and recovery processes.
  6. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Utilizing CDNs can help distribute traffic geographically and reduce the impact of attacks by caching content closer to end-users.
  7. Cloud-based DDoS Protection Services: Engaging the services of cloud-based DDoS protection providers can help mitigate large-scale attacks by absorbing and filtering malicious traffic before it reaches the organization’s network.

Impacts :

As per claimed by Anonymous Sudan,  Web pages of Archive Of Our Own  https://archiveofourown.org/ was down for 5 to 24 hours  leading to a period of downtime. Anonymous Sudan also asked for ransom to stop DDOS attack against Archive Of Our Own .

Message Sent from Anonymous Sudan :

You have exactly 24 hours from the time of the posting of this offer to fill up this bitcoin wallet with 30,000 US dollars.

Take away: As Anonymous Sudan claimed they would target any organization from USA cyber Space. It is a Cyber war against USA initiated by Anonymous Sudan

Disclaimer : The information provided herein is on “as is” basis, without warranty of any kind.