'Sophisticated' cyber attack on UK Labour Party platforms was probably just a DDoS, says official The UK's Labour Party says its campaign site has been the target of "sophisticated and large-scale cyber-attack" and has informed GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre. Jeremy Corbyn's party said the attack took place yesterday, adding that security systems ensured there was no data breach. A spokeswoman said: "We have …
Stranger and stranger - the DDoS protection worked, only it didn't? While I have no doubt that they received traffic from every continent (as does my home Internet connection hosting zero inbound services according to firewall logs) I'm not sure that makes it a targeted attack either. Checking their DNS history, Cloudflare has been in-place since September, so it wasn't an afterthought once things started going wrong.
https://twitter.com/rowlsmanthorpe/status/1194224258161008640
"Confirmed from a Labour source: the DDOS attack came from "a botnet with IPs on every continent."
Adds: "We use Cloudflare which soaked up the large majority of the traffic, but the DDOS-protection measures did have some knock-on effects on traffic between systems."
The counter would be hiring a botnet to DDoS a very specific part of a political opponents hours before a deadline for pamphlet printing sounds a little bit too much like " a dog ate my homework, can I have extra time?"
I'm sure we will see more evidence if it is real or it will quietly be forgotten if the cause was benign.
Some time later, and there'll probably be an El Reg story in response, but for posterity Lizard Squad have claimed responsibility for a DDOS attack.
Link to an online rag's story on the matter:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-cyber-attack-lizard-squad-ddos-corbyn-general-election-a9202006.html?amp=1
>What policy could labour have that would make the Russians think Boris was better for them?
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/britain-eu-johnson-russian/
Dominic Cummings is also strongly linked to the Golden Visa brigade - in fact he lived in Russia for several years in the nineties. It was not just his sunny disposition which led many Conservatives and civil servants to question his appointment.
I could go on, but doubtless you are impervious to fact - Labour seem to have taken a similar attitude towards pushing the issue too - which is depressing but not surprising.
What on earth makes you lot think the Russians, or whoever, wouldn't nobble both parties if they were willing to nobble one? Corbyn is simply much cheaper, and has been in Putin's pocket for 20 years. If he tried to deny it, the best he could manage is to look stupid enough to be providing the same service free.
Obviously Labour can't make a big deal out of it when Corbyn is only leader thanks to Russian fake 'Labour members' voting for him.
I'll let you off because of the troll icon however it's economics, if the west is destabilised like us leaving the EU or America voting for an imbecile it means other countries can gain such as Russia. I usually take these sorts of accusations with a huge pinch of salt especially when it's Iran or North Korea but in this case they do have something to gain which means it's believable. That's how I see anyway.
Really, it's silly to spend as much effort on Putinology as the media here does, because almost everything he does is almost entirely for domestic propaganda purposes. His supporters want to believe in him when he portrays Russia as still being a big player internationally, so the stories in the western media about Russian interference are read in Russia as a sign that they're so powerful they can get away with these things, rather than that they're an irritant not worth smacking down.
Really, it's silly to spend as much effort on Putinology as the media here does, because almost everything he does is almost entirely for domestic propaganda purposes. His supporters want to believe in him when he portrays Russia as still being a big player internationally, so the stories in the western media about Russian interference are read in Russia as a sign that they're so powerful they can get away with these things, rather than that they're an irritant not worth smacking down. ....... Dave314159ggggdffsdds
So .... Putinology presenting a Grand Sun Tzu Master Class, Dave314159ggggdffsdds ..... for Engagement, Employment and Enjoyment with Star Tsar and Tsarina of Mother Russia?
Or do you think Mother Russia too primitive to perform such Transubstantiations?
Such a folly as supplies a dogged false disbelief is an immaculate stealth delivered way beyond compare and reproach.
Howdy, aks. Never did he run KGB, as far as we're all informed. KGB's been in effect in Communist party's times, while FSB is a later Russian Federation's service.
As for the Cloudflare's ddos - there are times presently, when many and more witness unexplainable failings of the CF's respected anti-DOS policy.
As though, normally, I'd expect the British resourse hosted in the UK. Ah, never mind.
"Wait, aren't the Russians in favor of Labour winning this election?"
Based on the findings in the US reports, the Russians don't seem to favour one side or the other too heavily - they are more interested in affecting the trust in the democratic process.
I suspect the picking sides part will come later once democracy is viewed with distrust and suspicion.
.. an alternative explanation is that a last-minute rush to get some things done overloaded their servers...
"Today was the deadline for Labour CLPs to get their freepost printing done. Could it be that a last-minute scramble has overwhelmed Labour’s servers? [...] True a lot of people logging on can seem like a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack or it could just be a lot of people trying to log on before the deadline."
That would be about 600 or so requests at most, not enough to even overload a home server on a domestic connection.
650 constituencies - take away the 18 Northern Irish ones where Labour aren't standing and would want you to vote SDLP, take away the Speaker's seat, and possibly take away seats where the Co-op Party is fielding candidates, plus of course the seats where they didn't leave it to the last minute.
It's likely significantly more than that - I would imagine that each constituency will have 5-10 pamphlet designs depending on the points they are targeting (i.e. candidate info/general Labour info/Brexit/NHS/education/crime/opponents etc). You can't just assume one size fits all. And they are likely ordering 60+ million items all up (averaging 2 items per household - less in some places, more in others)
Having said that, it has been available since October, possibly even September, so I would have expected the majority (conservatively 70%+) of the work to have been done with only changes/new lines of campaigning to be going through for most constituencies plus any stragglers that are less well organised remaining.
"It's Government/Parliamentary IT remember, so probably more than enough..."
It's not even that, it's Labour's own IT.
The National Cyber Security Centre hasn't even classed it as a level six 'attack' which tells us all we need to know. At worst this is a low-level unsophisticated DDoS attack.
Having previously worked with a Labour constituency office on their GE campaigns, I can guarantee you, the vast majority will not have pre-ordered their leaflets and will have left it to the very last minute before trying to finalise their leaflets. This election, perhaps more than others, has been all about last-minute policy announcements and changes, you can't blame them for leaving it to the last minute so they have the most up-to-date policy information. It's far more likely that the systems have just been overwhelmed with the volume of requests.
I'm sure there'll be a member of the 'faithful' along shortly to tell us this is yet another example of an underhanded 'establishment' stitch-up.
"Come and look at our website, see what [strike] lies [/strike] promises we are putting in our Manifesto this time..."
If this was the cause, I fully expect the other big parties to be crying out for help from GCHQ in the next few days...
" a security official with knowledge of the matter
A Source of Interest to Interesting Sources in Official Security Systems. And here Anonymous like Secret Intelligence Services are most always.
Is Anonymous Worthy of Such Overall Virtual Command with Remote Access to Immaculate Controls?
If it is something new to you, just suck it and see and try leading with IrresistiblySucculent Offerings...... Advanced Cyber Treats
Think of it like building a SQL table relationship in the brains of people not IT literate.
HACKS = RUSSIA = JOHNSON = DODGY
I mean, Johnson and dodgy Russian money is a racing certainty. Those oligarchs would have to pay tax under a Corbyn govt. and they hate that idea. Tax is for the little people. Democracy 'Hacks' and Russia is a well-proven thing. So, it's just linking all these up in people's minds into a cloud of hazy emotional notions. Kind of like the daft corbyn is terry wrist. But in reverse.
Even if it wasn't a sophisticated hack, it's been on the front page of the Beeb all morning.
So, it is indeed a sophisticated hack, of the news if not of a computer system.
I'm certainly not little, both in size and interllecteulalljhfyui cleverness, and I hate tax
However I hate more paying in % terms in tax more than someone 'earning' million of pounds does.
And since the brexit party has run off from challenging the local tory, I'm left with voting liberal (arggh) or voting labour(aaaiiiieeeeee) ... of course I could vote tory(cue a 20 min rant that includes words such as f***ing, useless , incompetent, w****ers) but then I'd need a lobotomy first
Nah, it's just that the OoO message...
Dear Reader,
I will be out of the office to visit some of the people I don't know and would never talk to normally. For urgent issues, please contact Emily at 07***-*********"
...wasn't configured correctly and started filling up inboxen.
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