Anonymous Sudan Attacks AO3
Around July of 2023, the extremely popular fanworks site Archive of Our Own (AO3) got hit with a Distributed-Denial-Of-Service attack (DDoS). Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the group Anonymous Sudan, who cited religious motivations against the site.
The attack hit pretty close to home for me. Many of my online friends mourned the loss of the community that AO3 provides, and I had people come up to me asking what a “DDoS” was. While a story-sharing website is definitely nowhere as serious as a large company network or a government system, there’s something a whole lot more personal about logging into a website only to find a “this site is unavailable” screen. It felt jarring to see the cybersecurity terms I normally only find in a textbook or a wiki page pop up next to something so completely unrelated.
In my opinion, the attack serves as a reminder that cybersecurity isn’t part of its own little bubble, but is in fact an integral piece of our larger world. Hackers will perform feats of “activism”, pushed on by their political, religious, and even environmental beliefs(look no further than hacktivist group Guacamaya, who sabotage mining and oil corporations in Central and South America). Alongside tanks and missiles, cyberattacks are a common addition to the modern military arsenal. With every Google search and website you click on, cybersecurity-standardized encryptions protect your passwords from bad actors.
But despite the widespread importance of cybersecurity, we’re still seeing a shortage of individuals in the field. Part of this problem is due to the perceptions surrounding it: secretive and esoteric, hacking systems and programming computer viruses. As the digital world becomes increasingly intertwined with day-to-day reality, it’s crucial that we change these perceptions and express just how important having good digital security really is–it’s as easy as telling your friends to turn on two-factor authentication.
Written By: Jessie Chen
