Cyber ​​attackers target Pinoy Weekly website

“We condemn these attacks on alternative and independent media groups like Pinoy Weekly of Pinoy Media Center. We call on the public to join us in resisting attempts to silence our voices online and to hold these attacks accountable to the law and to the people. “

By JASMIN C. ESPINAS
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – New Alternatives Pinoy Weekly has been subjected to another wave of cyberattacks, leading to the shutdown of its website for nearly two days.

In a statement released by its publisher Pinoy Media Center, the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks occurred on November 17 and 18, during which at least 10 gigabytes of requests were made to their server. As the website is now back online, the Pinoy Media Center said it “fears it will be attacked again in the coming hours and days.”

DDoS refers to the flooding of a website server until it becomes inaccessible to its readers. PMC’s board has called this a violation of press freedom.

Among the articles published at the time of the attacks were an editorial on the ongoing alliance between the son of the namesake of the dictator Marcos Jr. and the daughter of President Sara Duterte-Carpio, a detailed report on the price increases and an analysis Of actuality. on the people’s agenda for the 2022 elections.

In 2018 and 2019, Pinoy Weekly was among those subject to continued DDoS attacks, along with other alternative online news such as Altermidya, Bulatlat, and Kodao. The Swedish digital rights group Qurium Foundation subsequently traced the attacks on two Filipino IT companies.

Read: Duterte’s predatory cyberwar against press freedom

This year, amid a new round of cyberattacks, Qurium’s forensic investigation into the attacks on Bulatlat and Altermidya brought them to the gates of the Philippine government, specifically the Department of Science and Technology and the Philippine Army.

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“We condemn these attacks on alternative and independent media groups like Pinoy Weekly of Pinoy Media Center. We call on the public to join us in resisting attempts to silence our voices online and to hold these attacks accountable to the law and to the people, ”the PMC said.

Pinoy Weekly, like other alternative media groups in the Philippines, received a red tag from the Philippine government’s anti-communist task force and the Philippine National Police.

“We warn those responsible for cyber attacks that we will not be intimidated by attempts to silence us. We will not be intimidated and we will retaliate with whatever is available to us. We will soon take legal and other measures to hold them to account, ”they added. (JJE, RVO)