FBI
21 Nov 2019, 04:16 GMT+10
AKRON, Ohio - For a few days in 2017, visitors to the websites for the city of Akron, Ohio, and its police department received error messages instead of the municipal webpages. A hacker had overwhelmed the sites with traffic.
City officials spent about four days in a game of whack-a-mole with the hacker, restoring the sites only to have them attacked again. In this type of attack, known as distributed denial of service (DDoS), bots or other computers overwhelm a single website with traffic until the site shuts down from lack of bandwidth. In addition to denying the public access to the websites, other city services were limited by the outage. After the initial four-day attack, hacking attempts directed at local and state government continued off and on for months.
The city quickly notified the FBI, which opened an investigation.
"When you have a persistent attacker going after a single site, the organizations have to spend a lot of time and effort handling it. There are also often effects on other systems besides the website," said the special agent who investigated the case out of the FBI's Cleveland Field Office.
This hacker was a "hacktivist" who liked to brag about his work, helping investigators quickly find him. James Robinson, then 32, posted screenshots of the sites he'd taken down and of the tools he had used. When questioned by investigators, Robinson admitted to these attacks and to several previous DDOS attacks on more prominent websites, such as the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Treasury.
Robinson told investigators he had grudges against the city's police department. He was also involved in a hacking group and participated in hacks directed by that group.
"He was very vocal about what he was doing. He wanted to bring attention to his opinions," the agent said of the hacktivist.
With the availability of "stressor" sites online that will cheaply conduct a DDOS attack on your behalf, Robinson didn't require any special technical skills to take down these sites. He was adept at using these tools.
"When you have a persistent attacker going after a single site, the organizations have to spend a lot of time and effort handling it."
Special agent, FBI Cleveland
Robinson pleaded guilty to damaging protected computers and was sentenced last month to six years in prison.
The FBI case agent stressed the importance of organizations protecting their websites and other online infrastructure as much as possible. Quickly notifying authorities of an intrusion or attack is also critical.
"The Internet is based on trust, and it's like a network of roads. When you're driving, you trust other drivers will stop at stop signs. Occasionally, a driver doesn't stop, and someone gets hurt," the agent said. "When someone acts maliciously on the Internet, bad things happen, and there are real-world impacts. That's why we have to pursue these types of cases."
Get a daily dose of Irish Sun news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Irish Sun.
More InformationSYDNEY, Australia - Two Australian schoolboys severely injured in the White Island volcano eruption in New Zealand on Monday have ...
WASHINGTON, DC - An executive order issued by President Donald Trump interpreting members of the Jewish religion as part of ...
LONDON, UK - With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general ...
Peace, Good Will and Joy on Earth at Christmas! But what does that mean for Palestine and Palestinians? Every year, ...
WASHINGTON - Leading House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, accusing him of ...
SANTIAGO, Chile - There has been no sign of the Chilean Air Force C130 Hercules aircraft which went missing on ...
WASHINGTON, DC - An executive order issued by President Donald Trump interpreting members of the Jewish religion as part of ...
LONDON, UK - With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general ...
WASHINGTON - Leading House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, accusing him of ...
Britain votes in a crucial general election on Thursday, with latest opinion polls showing Prime Minister Boris Johnson locked in ...
Thomas Whitton was a labourer and shoemaker from Shoreditch, east London. He was just 13 in June 1836 when he ...
Russian TV channel TNT has pulled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Servant of the People sitcom off the air after showing ...