14 DAY TRIAL // Newsweek reported suffering a massive DDoS attack right after they published an exposé on how some of Donald Trump's companies had violated the United States embargo on trading with Cuba.
The attack was sufficient to prevent access to the article on Friday, September 30, but the attack subsided, and the report was available the following day.
Kurt Eichenwald, the journalist that penned the piece, and Jim Impoco, Newsweek Editor-in-Chief, both categorized the incident as a cyber-attack.
"The reason ppl couldnt read #TrumpInCuba piece late yesterday is that hackers launched a major attack on Newsweek after it was posted," Eichenwald wrote on Twitter.
"Last night we were on the receiving end of what our IT chief called a 'massive' DoS (denial of service) attack," Impoco told fellow media outlet TalkingPointMemo (TPM) via email.
Some websites that generate enough hype can suffer from huge traffic loads that overcome servers. Nevertheless, Newsweek is a reputable news portal that has the resources to deal with such traffic spikes.
Impoco was very adamant that the incident was because of a coordinated DDoS attack, which he claims might have originated from Russia, but did not elaborate beyond explaining that the DDoS attack's "main" IP address was from Russia. This explanation doesn't make any technical sense since DDoS attacks don't have "main" IP addresses.
News: The reason ppl couldnt read #TrumpInCuba piece late yesterday is that hackers launched a major attack on Newsweek after it was posted. — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 30, 2016