Revision3.com – a DoS attack with a twist
During the last weekend (Memorial day weekend) the website of the very popular Internet Television network Revision3 were down during many hours following a massive DoS (Denial of Service) attack
Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 has provided a detailed write-up of last the event. It is for sure an interesting read, and the story is far more interesting as it might look like on a first view. DoS attacks are nothing unusual these days, but this case is different. The Revision 3 guys investigated over the past days to identify the source of the attack, hoping to get a better understanding would would have an interest in bringing down their services. The IP addresses at the source of the DoS attack belong to a rather “famous” subsidiary of Artistdirect: MediaDefender.
MediaDefender has been known in the past for their sometimes highly discussed efforts to “fight” the spreading of illegally traded copyrighted material, especially through peer-to-peer networks.
After talking to MediaDefender, they admitted that they were abusing Revision3s torrent tracker (which is used purely to distribute Revision3s own shows) by injecting a broad array of torrents into the tracker, without the knowledge of Revision3.
Jim Louderback describes the situation the following way in his post on the Revision3 blog:
It’s as if McGruff the Crime Dog snuck into our basement, enlisted an army of cellar rats to eat up all of our cheese, and then burned the house down when we finally locked him out – instead of just knocking on the front door to tell us the window was open
Louderback also confirmed that the FBI is investigating and that “it’s far more serious than toddlers squabbling over broken toys and lost cookies.”
Read the full post here.