by WorldTribune Staff, December 30, 2016
Matt Drudge tied the Obama administration to one of the worst DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks in the history of his powerful Drudge Report website on Dec. 29.
“Is the US government attacking DRUDGE REPORT? Biggest DDoS since site’s inception. VERY suspicious routing [and timing],” Drudge tweeted to his 457,000 followers.
Drudge Report was down for a brief time around 7 p.m. The top headline on the site at the time read: “MOSCOW MOCKS OBAMA ‘LAME DUCK’ ”
A Washington Times report noted that the DDoS attack on Drudge came the “same day Obama announced countermeasures against Russia for the hacking of Democrats.”
In the past, such DDoS attacks have shut down major websites such as Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tumblr, and Reddit.
Twitter users on Dec. 29 also accused the Obama administration of shutting down the Russian news website RT. “Numerous reports of Russian state-run Network RT being unavailable. Drudge Report also under ‘Biggest DDoS attack since site’s inception,’ ” one tweet said.
President Barack Obama on Dec. 29 announced sanctions against several Russian agencies and individuals after alleged cyberattacks during the 2016 presidential election against Democratic Party institutions.
“All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions. In October, my administration publicized our assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” Obama said. “These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government. Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year. Such activities have consequences.”
The Drudge Report boasts some 2 million daily unique visitors and around 700 million monthly page views. Its readers were loyal, staying on the site for an average of 30 minutes, Politico reported.
“People are religious in how they come to Drudge,” Vipul Mistry, Intermarket’s Business Development manager, told Politico’s On Media blog. “When we analyzed all our audience that’s what it is, people are on there not only in morning, they tend to leave it open as it refreshes.”