Posted on June 16, 2018 at 7:49 PM
Hackers Launch a DDoS Attack on a Mexican Campaign Website During the Presidential Debate
According to yesterday’s report, a Mexican campaign website was hit hard during this country’s final presidential debate. The attackers are currently unknown, but what is known is that they have used a DDoS attack to bring the campaign website down.
DDoS strikes again
The recent news from Mexico states that this country’s campaign website was attacked, and during the final presidential debate, of all times. This was the final debate before the elections, which are scheduled to be held on July 1 of this year.
The hackers attacked the website through the use of DDoS attack, which marks yet another example in the long list of such attacks that were used against various websites this year. The website was run by PAN (National Action Party), and it was targeting Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the election’s current front-runner.
However, Obrador’s party has firmly denied having anything to do with the attack. According to researchers, the large amount of traffic that was responsible for crashing the website seems to have come from China and Russia. This information represents a strong indication that one of these countries’ hackers were responsible for the attack, but there is no firm proof that this is actually the case.
In fact, none of the evidence found so far can indicate that the attack was performed by a foreign hacking group. However, many believe that this might still be the case, especially after the researchers found proof that Russia attempted to meddle in the US elections in late 2016.
The voting systems require a new method of protection
As for the attack itself, it is known that it was a DDoS attack, which has become a large trend in the latest period. WhiteHat Security’s security manager, Jeannie Warner, has even commented on this trend gaining the particular amount of popularity during election periods in various countries.
Warner said that DDoS attacks are preventable via WAF (Web Application Firewall) technology, as well as through the use of RASP (Runtime Application Self-Protection). She also said that critical services, as well as apps fronting PII or transactional info, need to have a protection app. According to her, the protection needs to offer more than what IPS (Intrusion Prevention System), or even NGFW (Next-Generation Firewall) can do.
She added that the DDoS attacks might also provide a perfect cover for another type of attack, since they can be quite distracting, and can be used for covering tracks. In fear of some other invasive attack, it is of utmost importance that countries start the development of better protection software, that would be capable of keeping the voting system safe.
