General Discussion

AnnieBW

(10,437 posts) Mon Nov 18, 2013, 09:43 PM Nov 2013

Right Wing Cyber Attacks On ACA Website Confirmed

Yep, I called it on Day One.

From Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/right-wing-cyber-attacks-on-healthcare-gov-website-confirmed

Yesterday, the House Homeland Security Committee published a video on their Youtube page highlighting a portion of the committee questioning Roberta Stempfley, acting assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cyber-security and Communications, who confirmed at least 16 attacks on the Affordable Care Act’s portal Healthcare.gov website in 2013.

Roberta Stempfley highlighted one successful attack that is designed to deny access to the website called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS attack is designed to make a network unavailable to intended users, generally through a concerted effort to disrupt service such as repeatedly accessing the servers, saturating them with more traffic than the website is designed to handle.

Right wingers have been distributing the link to the necessary tools to perform the attacks on the Healthcare.gov website through social networking, as pointed out by Information Week, and other websites .

The name of the attack tool is called, "Destroy Obama Care!"

12 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Right Wing Cyber Attacks On ACA Website Confirmed (Original Post) AnnieBW Nov 2013 OP

yup, but you won't hear about it on the MSM gopiscrap Nov 2013 #1

So the perpetrators should get around ten years each, like anonymous members have, right? Warren Stupidity Nov 2013 #2

Yeah, right. Scuba Nov 2013 #3

Find them, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Historic NY Nov 2013 #4

K & R !!! WillyT Nov 2013 #5

They must be proud of themselves, stopping people from getting insurance. gtar100 Nov 2013 #6

Are we sure this is the battle that needs to be fought? MyNameGoesHere Nov 2013 #7

Kick! Cha Nov 2013 #8

Isn't this considered a criminal act? Enthusiast Nov 2013 #9

Examiner.com eh? Capt. Obvious Nov 2013 #10

Actually, It Came From Information Week AnnieBW Nov 2013 #11

From InformationWeek Capt. Obvious Nov 2013 #12

gopiscrap

(23,761 posts)

1. yup, but you won't hear about it on the MSM

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 09:44 PM

Nov 2013

Warren Stupidity

(48,181 posts)

2. So the perpetrators should get around ten years each, like anonymous members have, right?

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 09:46 PM

Nov 2013

Scuba

(53,475 posts)

3. Yeah, right.

Reply to Warren Stupidity (Reply #2)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 09:50 PM

Nov 2013

Historic NY

(37,451 posts)

4. Find them, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 10:17 PM

Nov 2013

WillyT

(72,631 posts)

5. K & R !!!

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 10:44 PM

Nov 2013

gtar100

(4,192 posts)

6. They must be proud of themselves, stopping people from getting insurance.

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 10:55 PM

Nov 2013

But I'm not surprised given what pathetic excuses for human beings right wingers are.

MyNameGoesHere

(7,638 posts)

7. Are we sure this is the battle that needs to be fought?

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Mon Nov 18, 2013, 11:59 PM

Nov 2013

So yes the software exists, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I mean come on, were talking wingers here.

From Information Weekly.

Eisenbarth said this DDoS tool most likely can't deliver what it promises. "The request rate, the non-distributed attack architecture and many other limitations make this tool unlikely to succeed in affecting the availability of the healthcare.gov site," he said. Furthermore, he noted that to date, Arbor has seen no "active use of this software."

Cha

(297,378 posts)

8. Kick!

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Tue Nov 19, 2013, 12:31 AM

Nov 2013

Enthusiast

(50,983 posts)

9. Isn't this considered a criminal act?

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Tue Nov 19, 2013, 10:07 AM

Nov 2013

If not, why not? And why don't we hear about this on the TV media?

Capt. Obvious

(9,002 posts)

10. Examiner.com eh?

Reply to AnnieBW (Original post)

Tue Nov 19, 2013, 10:12 AM

Nov 2013

I'm holding judgement until I read it on OpEdNews.com.

AnnieBW

(10,437 posts)

11. Actually, It Came From Information Week

Reply to Capt. Obvious (Reply #10)

Tue Nov 19, 2013, 11:01 PM

Nov 2013

I posted the Las Vegas Examiner link because InfoWeek was getting pounded. (Hubby was checking that one.)

Capt. Obvious

(9,002 posts)

12. From InformationWeek

Reply to AnnieBW (Reply #11)

Wed Nov 20, 2013, 09:00 AM

Nov 2013

Eisenbarth said this DDoS tool most likely can't deliver what it promises. "The request rate, the non-distributed attack architecture and many other limitations make this tool unlikely to succeed in affecting the availability of the healthcare.gov site," he said. Furthermore, he noted that to date, Arbor has seen no "active use of this software."

In part, the tool's apparent inability to take down targeted Healthcare.gov websites demonstrates how grassroots DDoS attacks often face an uphill battle, owing to either technical problems or a lack of a critical mass of participants. Indeed, even some past, large-scale DDoS attacks launched by the hacktivist collective Anonymous didn't succeed in overwhelming targeted sites until -- reportedly -- bot-master benefactors temporarily brought legions of "zombie" PCs to bear on targeted sites.

InfoWeek

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