CSIS website goes down due to DDoS attack

The website for CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, appears to have gone down again — less than 24 hours after a suspected rogue hacker took the site down in a so-called denial of service attack. The website for Canada’s spy agency went offline shortly after 9 a.m. ET Tuesday. While the cause is still unknown, when the website went down Monday night, sources told CTV’s Mercedes Stephenson that a rogue hacker who had previously launched attacks on several municipal and police websites, had claimed responsibility for the CSIS attack. A denial-of-service attack is not technically a hack into the site, but the attack does prevent Internet users from accessing the website. “Experts I’ve spoken to say it is very hard to stop this kind of attack,” Stephenson told CTV News Channel Tuesday morning. “The level of sophistication and the number of ways they are attacking one website at one time to send it offline is very hard to prevent.” She says sources tell her that the hacker isn’t attempting to steal information in these attacks. “This is all about trying to embarrass the government, intelligence agencies and the police,” she said. The hacker is trying to draw attention to the controversial Bill C-51, as well as the case of an Ottawa teen who was charged in an alleged “swatting” incident. The hacker believes the teen was framed, sources tell CTV. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, acknowledged in a statement Monday night that the CSIS website had gone “temporarily offline.” “No information has been breached. We are taking cybersecurity very seriously,” spokesperson Jean-Christophe de Le Rue said. The same hacker was previously connected to hacking group Anonymous, but appeared to be operating alone on Monday, sources said. The person believed to be responsible tweeted out several messages about the CSIS website Monday, including: “I’m deciding if I should let CSIS back online and hit another government website, or if I should keep it offline for a while.” Less than two weeks ago, several government websites — including ServiceCanada.gc.ca and Parl.gc.ca — were hit by a denial of service attack. Anonymous claimed responsibility. Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/csis-website-goes-down-again-1.2447166

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CSIS website goes down due to DDoS attack