BENGALURU: In the run-up to the assembly elections on May 12, the website of popular civic movement Whitefield Rising (whitefieldrising.org) was attacked on Wednesday and Thursday, leading to a downtime of 8 hours on Wednesday and 3 hours on Thursday. The group, which is at the forefront of a massive drive to ensure a good voter turnout this elections, took help of several IT professionals to ensure that their website was up and running.
“The website was attacked yesterday and today. The attack came from 500 different systems primarily based in China and some in the United States. At one time, 20 systems participated in the attack. Confidential volunteers are helping us,” said a member of Whitefield Rising. The attack, termed as distributed denial of service (DDOS), was aimed at keeping the Whitefield Rising server busy with false requests consequently not allowing real users to access the website.
The group is now considering all options to pursue the matter, including the filing of a complaint with the police. “We will complete a thorough analysis and file a complaint. It was an attempt to suppress our voice which will not work. Everyone knows we are a neutral citizen group and will continue to remain that,” the member said.
Whitefield Rising is one of the most active groups and sees participation by IT sector community as well as old-time residents of Whitefield and surrounding areas.