Hello everyone,
By now you are likely aware that the Wikimedia sites suffered from a
relatively significant botnet driven DDOS attack on September 6th, taking
them offline in several countries throughout the day. This primarily
affected Wikipedia access in Europe and the Middle East. We posted a short
update of the event on our website.[1]
I would like to thank everyone who stepped up to support the restoration of
our projects, including the fast reporting of community members throughout
the world and our security and engineering teams who worked long hours to
address many complex issues surrounding the attack and our response—the
Site Reliability Engineering team in particular.
The Wikimedia Foundation leadership team is proud to work with such
talented and dedicated staff and supporters.
Yours,
Heather
1.
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/07/malicious-attack-on-wikiped…
"Today, Wikipedia was hit with a malicious attack that has taken it offline
in several countries for intermittent periods. The attack is ongoing and
our Site Reliability Engineering team is working hard to stop it and
restore access to the site.
As one of the world’s most popular sites, Wikipedia sometimes attracts “bad
faith” actors. Along with the rest of the web, we operate in an
increasingly sophisticated and complex environment where threats are
continuously evolving. Because of this, the Wikimedia communities and
Wikimedia Foundation have created dedicated systems and staff to regularly
monitor and address risks. If a problem occurs, we learn, we improve, and
we prepare to be better for next time.
We condemn these sorts of attacks. They’re not just about taking Wikipedia
offline. Takedown attacks threaten everyone’s fundamental rights to freely
access and share information. We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation
are committed to protecting these rights for everyone.
Right now, we’re continuing to work to restore access wherever you might be
reading Wikipedia in the world. We’ll keep you posted."
--
Heather Walls (she/her)
Chief Creative Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.org