Remember the malicious botnet that temporarily brought down a slew of services including Twitter, Spotify and SoundCloud last month? The exploit was used in an effort to take down the campaign websites of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, security researchers say.
Together, Trump and Clinton's websites were targeted a total of four times between Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, according to analysts at security firm Flashpoint. The attacks were carried out by "unsophisticated actors," the company says.
None of the attacks were successful in bringing down either candidate's site and Flashpoint notes the botnet -- the result of a compromised Internet of Things -- is getting weaker and less effective.
As with the October cyberattack, attackers used the botnet to attempt what's called a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which aims to bring websites down by overwhelming them with traffic. Flashpoint says it suspects there were different individuals behind each attack but they have "high confidence" none of the attacks were the work of a state actor.
"So far, these DDoS attacks been limited to the nominees’ website infrastructure and have not targeted – nor affected – any infrastructure associated with the actual electoral process. Flashpoint assesses with high confidence that these attacks were not perpetrated by a state actor. This attack, in addition to other more powerful, higher-profile attacks associated with the Mirai botnet, all align closely with tactics, techniques, and procedures commonly executed by hackers operating from underground forums."
