Threat Management

Attack spike against Utah gov’t computers may be work of hacktivists

Experts believe that a Salt Lake City-based NSA data center may have drawn the ire of hacktivists – which may explain a significant spike in attacks against Utah state computers in the past two years.

According to a Friday AP report, Utah officials began to observe the uptick in early 2013, as the public increasingly speculated about activities – such as mass surveillance of private communications – that would occur in the data center.

Using an automated system which detects attacks on state systems, officials noticed a jump in malicious activity in January 2013, from an average of 50,000 attacks a day to 20 million. By February 2013, they saw an average of 75 million attacks a day, AP reported.

Security experts said that hackers may have targeted state-run utilities powering the data center in an attempt to disrupt NSA operations and gain notoriety.

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news

By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

You can skip this ad in 5 seconds