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Apparent DDoS attack knocks Swedish news services offline

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Seven of Sweden's top online newspapers were disabled for several hours this past weekend after a series of apparent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the Agence France-Presse has reported.

Shortly before the coordinated cyberattack took place, a Twitter user threatened, “The following days [sic] attacks against the Swedish government and media spreading false propaganda will be targeted [sic].” The affected publications were Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Industri, Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad.

Swedish police on Saturday released a statement that, roughly translated, stated: “Because of the cyber attacks that hit multiple media newsrooms, police have launched a preliminary investigation, and [are] now working on the necessary resources needed for the investigation.” Multiple news reports have quoted Swedish police as stating the fake DDoS traffic was generated by computers in Russia, though the attackers are not necessary based there.

Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

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