Cyber-attack Group Launches DDoS Attacks on Turkish Government Websites

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Recently, several Turkish government websites faced attacks from cyber-attack group Anonymous. The attack comes just days before scheduled elections in the country. The website of the Turkey’s telecom authority was the major target of the latest cyber-attacks. Anonymous has said that attack is in response to the proposed Internet filtering system, which would come into effect in August. The announcement of the new filtering system had triggered protests across the country in May. While the government advocates the introduction of the system as a necessary measure to protect families and children from offensive material, many consider it as a move curb Internet freedom. The introduction of filtering system assumes high significance in the context of use of Internet for protests in several countries in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region. The cyber-attack group has warned of further attacks on Turkish government websites, two weeks before the scheduled implementation of the Internet filtering system. Turkish IT security specialists were successful in controlling the disruption caused by the attack. However, the group also targeted other government websites, which included those of social security, meteorology, and several websites of political parties, and public institutions.

Cyber security experts have identified the latest attacks as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The attacks purportedly involved use of around 90,000 zombie computers. Attackers detect and exploit security flaws to gain remote access to large number of computers. Cybercriminals then issue commands to the compromised computer systems to make simultaneous multiple requests to targeted websites. The multiple requests overload the server of the targeted websites, making it virtually impossible to process requests of legitimate users of the sites. Anonymous has previously launched DDoS attacks on several websites including those of MasterCard and Visa, for their refusal to support payments to WikiLeaks. A pro-Turkish attacking group has reportedly made retaliatory attacks against Anonymous after the latest attacks.

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EC-Council University is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and offers Master of Security Science (MSS) degree to students from various backgrounds such as graduates, IT Professionals, and military students amongst several others. The MSS is offered as a 100% online degree program and allows EC-Council University to reach students from not only the United States, but from all around the world.

EC-Council is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce skills. It is the owner and developer of 16 security certifications, including Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI) and EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA)/License Penetration Tester (LPT). Its certificate programs are offered in over 60 countries around the world.

EC-Council has trained over 80,000 individuals and certified more than 30,000 members, through more than 450 training partners globally. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies including the U.S. federal government via the Montgomery GI Bill, Department of Defense via DoD 8570.01-M, National Security Agency (NSA) and the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS). EC-Council also operates the global series of Hacker Halted security conferences.

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