Telegram faces massive DDoS attack; suspects link to the ongoing Hong Kong protests

Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov shared his suspicion that the recent massive DDoS attack on his messaging service was made by the Chinese government. He also stated that this attack coincides with the ongoing Hong Kong protests where protesters used Telegram for their inter-communication to avoid detection as Telegram can function both in online as well as offline.

https://twitter.com/durov/status/1138942773430804480

On Jun 12, a tweet from Telegram Messenger informed users that the messaging service was “experiencing a powerful DDoS attack”. It further said that this attack was flooding its servers with “garbage requests”, thus disrupting legitimate communications.

Telegram allows people to send encrypted messages, documents, videos and pictures free of charge. Users can create groups for up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to unlimited audiences. The reason for its growing popularity is due to its emphasis on encryption, which prevents many widely used methods of reading confidential communications.

Hong Kong protests: A movement opposing the ‘extradition law’

On Sunday, around 1 million people demonstrated in the semi-autonomous Chinese city-state against amendments to an extradition law that would allow a person arrested in Hong Kong to face trial elsewhere, including in mainland China.

“Critics fear the law could be used to cement Beijing’s authority over the semi-autonomous city-state, where citizens tend to have a higher level of civil liberties than in mainland China”, The Verge reports.

According to The New York Times, “Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory, enjoys greater freedoms than mainland China under a "one country, two systems" framework put in place when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. Hong Kong residents can freely surf the Internet and participate in public protests, unlike in the mainland.”

To avoid surveillance and potential future prosecutions, these protestors disabled location tracking on their phones, bought train tickets using cash and refrained from having conversations on their social media. Many protesters masked their faces to avoid facial recognition and also avoided using public transit cards with a fear that it can be voluntarily linked to their identities, instead opting for paper tickets.

According to France24, “Many of those on the streets are predominantly young and have grown up in a digital world, but they are all too aware of the dangers of surveillance and leaving online footprints.”

Ben, a masked office worker at the protests, said he feared the extradition law would have a devastating impact on freedoms. "Even if we're not doing anything drastic -- as simple as saying something online about China -- because of such surveillance they might catch us," the 25-year-old told France24.

The South China Morning Post first reported on the role the messaging app played in the protests when a Telegram group administrator was arrested for conspiracy to commit public nuisance. The alleged person “managed a conversation involving 30,000 members, is that he plotted with others to charge the Legislative Council Complex and block neighbouring roads”, SCMP reports.

Bloomberg reported that protestors “relied on encrypted services to avoid detection. Telegram and Firechat -- a peer-to-peer messaging service that works with or without internet access -- are among the top trending apps in Hong Kong’s Apple store”.

“Hong Kong’s Legislative Council suspended a review of the bill for a second day on Thursday amid the continued threat of protests. The city’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, is seeking to pass the legislation by the end of the current legislative session in July”, Bloomberg reports. Telegram also noted that the DDoS attack appears to have stabilized, and also assured users that their data is safe.

https://twitter.com/telegram/status/1138781915560009735

https://twitter.com/telegram/status/1138777137102675969

Telegram explained the DDoS attack in an interesting way:

A DDoS is a “Distributed Denial of Service attack”: your servers get GADZILLIONS of garbage requests which stop them from processing legitimate requests. Imagine that an army of lemmings just jumped the queue at McDonald’s in front of you – and each is ordering a whopper.

The server is busy telling the whopper lemmings they came to the wrong place – but there are so many of them that the server can’t even see you to try and take your order.

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