Wikipedia hit by massive DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack; goes offline in many countries

Two days ago, on September 7, Wikipedia confirmed with an official statement that it was hit by a malicious attack a day before causing it to go offline in many countries at irregular intervals. The “free online encyclopedia” said the attack was ongoing and the Site Reliability Engineering team is working to curb the attack and restore access to the site.

According to downdetector, users across Europe and parts of the Middle East experienced outages shortly before 7pm, BST on September 6.

Also Read: Four versions of Wikipedia goes offline in a protest against EU copyright Directive which will affect free speech online

The UK was one of the first countries that reported a slow and choppy use of the site. This was followed by reports of the site then being down in several other European countries, including Poland, France, Germany, and Italy.

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Source: Downdetector.com

By Friday evening, 8.30 pm (ET), the attack extended to an almost-total outage in the United States and other countries. During this time, there was no spokesperson available for comment at the Wikimedia Foundation.

https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1170157756579504128

On September 6, at 20:53 (UTC) Wikimedia Germany then informed users by tweeting that a “massive and very” broad DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on the Wikimedia Foundation servers, making the website impossible to access for many users.

https://twitter.com/WikimediaDE/status/1170077481447186432

The official statement on the Wikimedia foundation reads, “We condemn these sorts of attacks. They’re not just about taking Wikipedia offline. Takedown attacks threaten everyone’s fundamental rights to freely access and share information. We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation are committed to protecting these rights for everyone.”

Cybersecurity researcher, Baptiste Robert, with the online name Elliot Anderson wrote on Twitter, “A new skids band is in town. @UKDrillas claimed they are behind the DDOS attack of Wikipedia. You’ll never learn... Bragging on Twitter (or elsewhere) is the best way to get caught. I hope you run fast.”

https://twitter.com/fs0c131y/status/1170093562878472194

https://twitter.com/atoonk/status/1170400761722724354

To know about this news in detail, read Wikipedia’s official statement.