A new generation of cyber activists are focusing their attention on executing politically motivated digital attacks.
According to Joe Stewart of SecureWorks, the DDoS trojan that recently downed blogs and forums critical of the Vietnamese Communist Party is a prime example of such a trend.
“[Of course], we have had a history of this kind of activity in Eastern Europe for awhile now,” Stewart told InfoSecurity.
“[For example], there are constant attacks against news sites and journalists using denial of service tools in that region.”
Stewart noted that such attacks – using the Eastern European paradigm – had significantly increased in other parts of the world.
“We have not just this thing happening in Vietnam, but we saw recently there was an attack against some Brazilian political parties in the past week that coincided with their elections.
“And then there are attacks going on in Burma. So, it [certainly] seems to be a growing trend to use denial of service attacks to silence other [opposing] viewpoints.”
