Russian Opposition Websites Shut Down By Attacks

A set of Russian opposition news sites are back online after a series of distributed-denial of service (DDoS) attacks overwhelmed their servers.

Kasparov.ru, the internet portal of the United Civil Front party, was forced offline Monday evening, the editorial office said. As many as 1,500 requests per second were sent to the site, which could not handle the load, and the attacks continued well into the following day. Nazbol.ru, the website of the banned National Bolshevik Party, was concurrently taken down.

On Wednesday morning, another opposition online newspaper was targeted. Grani.ru, which publishes news and opinion content, was accessible to readers only intermittently by Wednesday evening, editors said. Ikd.ru, which publishes news about demonstrations going on around Russia, also reported an attack.

DDoS attacks, which send phony user requests and jam web servers, have frequently been used against political websites in Russia.

In the past year, opposition leaders have described the attacks as a systematic problem. Kasparov.ru was last targeted in August. Other affected sites include the web portals of Human Rights in Russia, Ekho Moskvy radio, the March of Dissent protests, and even the Kommersant newspaper.

As of Thursday December 25th, each of the sites appeared to be working properly.