Security News > 2020 > February > FBI Makes Arrest in DDoS Attack on Candidate's Website

The FBI has arrested a suspect who's charged in connection with waging distributed denial-of-service attacks against the campaign website of an unsuccessful 2018 Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in California.

The FBI's criminal complaint in the case claims that Arthur Jan Dam, who lives in California, conducted four DDoS attacks between April 20, 2018, and May 29, 2018, against the campaign website of an unnamed Democratic primary candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in California who ultimately lost.

SiteGround told the victim that the high levels of activity could be either due to a malicious DDoS attack or due to the "Slashdot effect," which is when a popular website links to a smaller site, hence directing large amounts of traffic to the smaller website.

The FBI investigated 61 of the IP addresses involved in the DDoS attack and found that they all were tied to AWS, the filing said, adding that AWS identified 46 of those IP addresses to a single account.

Earlier this month, the FBI warned that attackers were trying to disrupt one state's voter registration website with a DDoS attack.

News URL

https://www.inforisktoday.com/fbi-makes-arrest-in-ddos-attack-on-candidates-website-a-13754