On June 15, many US regions faced issues accessing online and communications services which led many to believe that the country may be experiencing a coordinated DDoS, or “distributed denial of service” attack. These attacks are malicious attempts to disrupt or shut down targeted servers by overwhelming them with traffic from multiple sources.
According to outage aggregator Downdetector, users reported outages in major mobile carriers (T-Mobile, Metro, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Consumer Cellular, US Cellular), Internet providers (Spectrum, Comcast, CenturyLink, Cox), social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Twitter), games and game services (Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty, Steam, Xbox Live, Playstation Network), streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Now, Twitch), banks (Chase Bank, Bank of America), delivery services (Doordash), and other major platforms like Google and Zoom.
@YourAnonCentral, a popular Anonymous twitter account, posted on Twitter “The U.S. is currently under a major DDoS attack.”
Meanwhile, people on Twitter have been calling this widespread outage a #DDoSAttack on the US. One individual wrote, “people shouldn’t take a #DDoSAttack on the US lightly. Yes Twitter wasn’t affected (now if Amazon AWS servers were affected you wouldn’t be reading this tweet etc.) but the fact T-Mobile was affected on such a huge scale. No service for hours. That’s scary!”
Some of them have also tweeted claims that this attack was made possible because of Trump. One person tweeted, “Whoever is behind this #DDoSAttack is demonstrating a terrifying capability. I fear Trump dissolved the national cybersecurity coordinator position because he wanted to hide Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, we’re vulnerable to all forms [of] technological attacks.” Another wrote, “So every major mobile carrier and ISP are under attack from a massive DDoS. Do y’all all remember who got rid of the national cybersecurity coordinator position two years ago!?!?”
Another person on Twitter also opined that this is all a distraction from the pandemic and the social unrest within the country. “This is just distraction, much like the feds releasing evidence of UFOs last month (seriously, why now if it’s not a distraction, as they’ve known for years). They’re screwing with everyone’s heads during a viral outbreak and social unrest regarding police brutality #DDoSAttack.”
A US House Candidate, Ted Lieu also tweeted, “In light of this DDoS attack, your reminder that @realDonaldTrump eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator position at the NSC in 2018. And in 2019 at least a dozen high-level officials resigned from cybersecurity mission established under Obama.”