Ustream was hit with a distributed denial of service attack today that apparently was designed to interfere with the streaming of video from anti-government demonstrations in Russia.
The popular live streaming site has been under attack for about seven hours, a spokeswoman for the site told CNET. Around 9:30 a.m. PT the Ustream account on Twitter reported that "Our heroic engineers have partially restored (the) streaming service after DDoS attacks on Russian Citizen Journalist."
"Ustream is experiencing a denial of service attack from around the world, specifically targeting one channel in Russia, from a citizen journalist," Ustream CEO Brad Hanstebl is quoted as saying in a Russian language
online news article
. "This is the third DDoS attack in the last few months, specifically targeting Russian citizen journalists on Ustream."
GigaOM had reported
earlier today that live streaming service provider Bambuser also was under attack. Demonstrators have been protesting since the inauguration of President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, clashing with police, and hundreds have been detained and arrested. In addition to complaints about election fraud, protesters are clamoring for political reforms. Russia's move from communism to a capitalism-based economy led to a new class of billionaires who own formerly nationalized assets while crime syndicates have moved their enterprises online. Many of the early credit card data theft and identity fraud rings were based in Russia and former eastern bloc countries.
More to come...
