Wikipedia whacked in weekend DDoS attack

Wikipedia blames 'malicious attack' on 'bad faith actors'

Wikipedia was taken offline in parts of the world over the weekend in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

The site we nt down at around 7pm BST on Friday, affecting millions of users throughout Europe and in parts of the Middle East. However, it returned on Saturday morning.

A spokesperson from Wikipedia blamed the "malicious attack" on "bad actors" in a blog post explaining things.

"As one of the world's most popular sites, Wikipedia sometimes attracts ‘bad faith' actors," the post continued. "Along with the rest of the web, we operate in an increasingly sophisticated and complex environment where threats are continuously evolving.

"Because of this, the Wikimedia communities and Wikimedia Foundation have created dedicated systems and staff to regularly monitor and address risks. If a problem occurs, we learn, we improve, and we prepare to be better for next time."

It concluded: "We condemn these sorts of attacks," the post continued. "They're not just about taking Wikipedia offline. Takedown attacks threaten everyone's fundamental rights to freely access and share information. We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation are committed to protecting these rights for everyone."

However, the Wikimedia Foundation hasn't provided any more details about either the technical nature of the attack, or the likely people or organisations behind it. The German Wikipedia Twitter account did, though, claim that the site had been "paralysed by a massive and very broad DDoS hit".

DDoS attacks aren't uncommon, but websites and organisations such as Cloudflare have developed effective protection that can mitigate most types of attack and render them harmless. High-profile DDoS attacks in recent years include one in 2013 and 2014 against popular gaming services, including Valve Software's Steam and Electronic Arts' Origin. A 23-year-old from Utah pleaded guilty to that series of attacks in 2018.

And in 2016 and 2017, a number of services, including Dyn DNS, were overwhelmed by a DDoS attack that was traced to Mirai, a botnet that takes advantage of insecure, internet-connected digital video recorders used by CCTV systems.