Don’t pull the plug please

Maybe you have heard or maybe you have not, but last week Turkey was hit by a very fierce cyberattack. 
According to Sara Malm of the Daily Mail, the hacking group Anonymous launched a massive cyberattack on Turkey, accusing the country’s leaders of supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

The global “hacktivist” collective has threatened to sabotage the servers of Turkey’s airports, banks, military services and government facilities unless they stop aiding ISIL.

Last week, Anonymous brought down up to 40,000 websites across Turkey by attacking the country’s “root servers.”

Anonymous stepped up their “online war efforts” in the fight against ISIL in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last month. According to one Anonymous source, “You may be wondering why we are ‘trolling’ ISIL and planning all these demonstrations. To understand that, you must first see how ISIL works.

“They thrive off fear and hope that by their actions they can silence all of us and get us to just lay low and hide in fear. We will show them that we are not afraid, we will not just hide in our fear, we are the majority and with our strength in numbers we can make a real difference. We will mock them for the idiots they are.”
 
Anonymous already published and updated a list of Twitter accounts they claim spread propaganda in support of ISIL, a list which has now increased to more than 5,500 accounts.  

However, some sources say the attack which hit Turkey was the biggest ever because of very active Russian participation; Russians are known to be great hackers, along with the Chinese and the Americans. Therefore, a scenario where there was an active participation from Russia in the Anonymous attacks is very logical considering the current political climate between Turkey and Russia. 

The disruptive traffic, known as a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack - in which thousands of computers targeted specific Internet targets - resulted in web speeds plummeting at some sites, according to Nic.tr, a non-government body that administers addresses for websites using the “.tr” domain, including ministries, the military, banks and many commercial sites.  

“While both the size and duration of the attack are notable, neither is unheard of. We don’t have enough information to start speculating on whether this is related to specific countries or which kind of group or single individual may be behind it,” said Artturi Lehtio of Finland-based internet security company F-secure.

So we do not exactly know who is behind the attacks and we don’t exactly know their real intentions. 

What I would like to underline is Turkey’s inability to withstand these attacks. We know that the future will be about controlling the digital world. We know that we are having disputes with the countries that are known for their notorious hackers. And still, we don’t take any precautions. The only solution that was implemented by the people who are in charge was to take down the servers that were affected. This resulted in an immense loss of time and work. 

It would be very nice if we could be more prepared for major types of attacks so that the ministries could function even under attack rather than pulling the plug and waiting for the storm to pass.