DNS Provider Kicks WikiLeaks Off Its Network over DDoS Fears

EveryDNS has terminated services for wikileaks.org because the stability of its infrastructure was threatened by multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks directed at the domain.

The attacks against WikiLeaks began on Sunday, before the organization started publishing leaked U.S. Department of State cables on its website.

The initial attack was claimed by an Internet hacktivist calling himself “The Jester” and while it did cause disruptions, it was not very powerful in comparison with other such incidents.

According to data from DDoS mitigation solutions provider Arbor Networks, the Sunday attack ranged between 2 and 4 Gbps in traffic.

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks announced being the target of a second attack that exceeding 10 Gbps. Arbor Networks confirmed that this second DDoS was indeed larger and also more sophisticated, because several different attack methods were used.

On Wednesday, the organization moved its website to Amazon Web Services (AWS), but the company kicked it out the next day for alleged policy violations.

Amazon said that WikiLeaks continued to be attacked while it was hosted on its network. “There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against,” the company wrote in a statement.

The next blow received by the whistleblower site was from EveryDNS, a subsidiary of Dynamic Network Services, which provides free DNS services for almost 500,000 domain names.

“WikiLeaks,org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks,” Wikileaks reported on Twitter and took advantage of the incident to ask for some more donations.

“[...] The services were terminated for violation of the provision which states that ‘Member shall not interfere with another Member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services.’

“The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure,” the DNS provider explained.