FBI PIN TLP Clear: Hacktivists Use of DDoS Activity Causes Minor Impacts

Summary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this Private Industry Notification to highlight hacktivism activity and encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the Mitigations section to reduce the likelihood and impact of distributed denial of service1 (DDoS) attacks.

Threat

The FBI defines hacktivism as a collective of cyber criminals who conduct cyber activities to advance an ideological, social, or political cause. Historically, hacktivist collectives conducted and advocated for cyber crime activity following high-profile political, socioeconomic, or world events. Coinciding with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FBI is aware of Pro-Russian hacktivist groups employing DDoS attacks to target critical infrastructure companies with limited success. Hacktivists provide tools and guidance on cyber attack methodology and techniques to anyone willing to conduct an attack on behalf of their cause. DDoS attacks of public facing websites, along with web page and social media profile defacement, are a preferred tactic for many operations. These attacks are generally opportunistic in nature and, with DDoS mitigation steps, have minimal operational impact on victims; however, hacktivists will often publicize and exaggerate the severity of the attacks on social media. As a result, the psychological impact of DDoS attacks is often greater than the disruption of service.

view the detailed report below.