AfterDawn: Tech news

FCC denies report that its website was attacked

Written by James Delahunty @ 11 Jun 2014 4:35

FCC denies report that its website was attacked

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has denied a report from VICE that its website suffered from a denial of service attack last week.
After comedian John Oliver had a rant about the FCC and net neutrality, he urged people to go to the FCC website and provide the regulator with feedback while opinion from the public was being sought. Not long after this, the commenting section on the FCC website became unusable.

VICE ran a report quoting an FCC source saying that it was actually hacked who brought down the commenting system with a denial of service attack.

Later though, an FCC spokesperson reached out to Engadget to deny the initial report. He said that the commission had no evidence of a malicious attack, and that a high volume of traffic caused the collapse. Engadget also noted that the FCC's commenting system is 17 years old.

VICE is sticking by its original report however, saying that a high-level FCC source had described it as a "database denial of service attack."



When you think about it though, given the age of the FCC's commenting system and combining that with thousands people trying to add comments, would that appear to be a denial of service attack if you were unaware of John Oliver's call to arms?


Sources and Recommended Reading
The FCC Was Hacked After John Oliver Called for Net Neutrality Trolls: VICE
Sorry, guys, you didn't actually crash the FCC website (update: FCC responds): www.engadget.com

Previous Next  
Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments
How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller (11 Feb 2023 1:04)
Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the ....
2 user comments
Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account (26 Jan 2023 2:14)
Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers. However, ....

News archive