Hackers Target NASA with DDoS Attack, Claim to Shutdown Email Servers
March 23, 2016
Shah Sheikh (1294 articles)
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Hackers Target NASA with DDoS Attack, Claim to Shutdown Email Servers

Anonymous is a loosely connected group of hacktivists that doesn’t appreciate governments keeping secrets or conducting operations that somehow violate user privacy. So, to register their resentment what they do is attack the agency’s systems and hack critically important data.

The same modus operandi was employed by an Anonymous-linked team of hackers called New World Hacking when they learned that NASA was “holding back information on many things, not just one.”

NASA’s computer systems, allegedly, were attacked by New World Hacking team’s hacktivists and their supporters on Sunday night as part of a bigger campaign against government cover-ups called Operation Censorship or #OPCensorship.

The hackers claimed that they have managed to shut down the space agency’s primary website and email servers. The attack was materialized through the most commonly used weapon called DDoS attack.

However, NASA’s website was still found to be operational instead of being down as per the claims from the hacker group. But, the New World Hacking team provided proof, which suggested that some of the space agency’s systems were suffering from the aftershocks of what is termed as a digital blitzkrieg.

hackers-ddos-and-shutdown-nasa-website-and-email-servers
Screenshot shared by hackers show the NASA email server was down in following countries

Remember, the NWH is the same group who claimed responsibility for shutting down Xbox online service,BBC news servers, HSBC UK’s online banking, the official website for Donald Trump’s election campaign, Salt Lake city Police and airport websites.

“NWH hackers vow to target Trump in their next cyber attack”

While talking to HackRead, the group stated that NASA was attacked because they were convinced that the agency has important information about the extremist organization ISIS but it is withholding the information. The group also refused to reveal the secret information about ISIS.

The attack hasn’t been confirmed or denied by NASA and we cannot possibly verify if the hacktivists’ claims are true or not since the site is working.

Hackers also shared an inside screenshot and claimed that they could access the NASA’s Internet email server:

Hackers claim they were able to get into the NASA server however the security implemeted on the server didn't let them go any further
Hackers claim they were able to get into the NASA server, however, the security implemented on the server didn’t let them go any further

“We believe NASA is holding back information on many things, not just one. The main thing we suspect they are holding back some more information on ISIS that the public needs to know.We won’t tell the public what we think they are hiding – we will let NASA explain.”

They also added that this attack is more like a practice run for the most important campaign against Donald Trump, which they plan to execute on April Fool’s day.

“We want Trump to know that he is next,” the hackers added.

Source | HackRead