The world survives "the largest cyber attack in recorded history"
Thu, 05/28/2009 - 9:26am
When a nationalist party has to invoke the threat of DDOS attacks from Eastern Europe in its fund-rasising appeal, it's a sure sign that the cyberwarfare paranoia has jumped the shark. The Register has more:
A supposedly massive denial of service attack against the British National Party website has been exposed as a gross exaggeration.
The assault, which began on Friday, was described by the party in an email appeal for funds as the "largest cyber attack in recorded history" and comparable only to a 2001 assault against Microsoft*. Nick Griffin, leader of the controversial far-right political party, asked the party's supporters to stump up the £5,000 urgently needed to purchase hardware and servers supposedly needed to keep the site up and running.
Griffin's email appeal claims that the assault came from "eastern Europe and Russia" and that Clear Channel, a firm supplying Euro election billboard advertising services to the BNP, is also under attack and contemplating legal action.
As the Register article goes on to document, the "largest cyber attack in recorderd history" turned out to be grossly exagerrated and may be little more than a rheotorical trick to help BNP raise more money. It's a good thing that the Register guys bothered to deconstruct this narrative, but I am wondering how many more mysterious and mostly fictitious taccounts of "most destructive" cyber-attacks are cluttering the news reels at the moment.
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