The Ukraine crisis has been covered 24/7 @MoonOfAlabama and I have added some comments and read the blog every day. The last couple of days, posters were complaining it was difficult to get access. In the time to post a comment, chances were the blog would be down. At first, the WordPress software was blamed, later some top commenters said the site was under Ddos attack. Since my last four posts on Easter Sunday, the blog has been down. I started searching for info what could have happened.

today, moon of alabama is under even more severe attack than yesterday

(Niqnaq) – Since bernhard doesn’t seem to give a damn, or doesn’t read the long serious of comments warning that his blog has been under almost continuous DDoS attack for more than 24 hours, I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Someone you MoA readers may already be aware of, a certain “Cold N Holefield”, offers this overwrought analysis in Saker’s blog:

    “Thank you for serving as a sponge for Western treasonous traitors. Your site is being offered as a link far and wide by all those, including many dissenters in the West, as proof of their hatred of all things “American.” We now know who they are, and when the time comes, hopefully their idol, Vladimir Damien Putin, will welcome them with open Gulags (versus arms). In that sense, you have provided an invaluable service. As for the meat of your content, pure ФСБ propaganda.

    I’m prepared to call your bluff and Putin’s bluff, Saker. I’m ready to die. Are you and Putin? I don’t think so. You’re survivors, and survivors don’t commit suicide. You’re bluffing bullshitters, and if anyone in a position of a power had any balls, they’d have called you and Putin on your bullshit nuclear trump card already. You’ll never use it. Never. Want to bet?”

    19 April, 2014 01:05

This impressively disturbed looney has a blog, even: Catcher In The Lie.
Far be it from me to suggest that he would be fun to tease.

Indeed, Moon of Alabama was read across the globe and appreciated by many. One person who quoted the value of the blog MofA was investigative journalist of the Asia Times, Pepe Escobar. In my diary I listed an audio interview with him, the part below the fold.

I saw the troll “Cold N Holefield” come to the site and post two comments. He was quickly called out in the last few hours the site was LIVE. This was my comment about the troll:

 
Russia, UK and the US in cyber warfare over the Ukraine crisis

Continued below the fold …

BAE report says Ukraine has faced attacks from sophisticated cyber espionage software  by Associated Press 09.03.2014

LONDON (AP) — Ukraine was repeatedly attacked by sophisticated cyberspies as tensions between pro-Russian and Western-leaning factions escalated in recent months, according to a report from U.K.-based defense contractor BAE Systems.

Ukrainian computer systems have been targeted by at least 22 attacks launched by “committed and well-funded professionals” since January 2013, BAE found. While BAE didn’t identify the source of the attacks, a German company said the espionage software has “Russian roots.”

The spies used “Snake” malware that allowed them to gain control of the computer systems of large organizations and steal information, according to the report from BAE’s Applied Intelligence unit. Snake’s design “suggests that attackers possess an arsenal of infiltration tools and bears all the hallmarks of a highly sophisticated cyber operation,” BAE said.

While the report released last week by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence doesn’t name Russia as the source of the attacks, it suggests they originated in the time zone where Moscow is located.

G Data Software, based in Bochum, Germany, went a step further, saying that a variant of the snake software known as Uroburos [pdf] has “Russian roots.” There are “strong indications” that the group behind Uroburos, the Greek word for an ancient symbol that shows a serpent eating its own tale, is the same one that attacked U.S. military bases in 2008 with malware known as Agent.BTZ, G Data said.

“Notable hints include the usage of the exact same encryption key then and now, as well as the presence of Russian language in both cases,” according to the G Data report.

What does the name mean?
G Data has called the malware “Uroburos” after a corresponding name used in the source code, which is based on an ancient Greek symbol of a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.

Snake virus hits users outside Ukraine

March 11, 2014 – Called the “Snake” or “Uroboros” virus, it has been compared to the Stuxnet worm. According to io9.com, the virus works by giving the attacker full remote access to the compromised system and it has the ability to stay inactive for a number of days.

…
According to Jaime Blasco, director of AlienVault labs, the virus, also known as Turla, is related to another piece of malware called Agent.BTZ that was found in an USB stick in 2008 in a parking lot of a government building in the United States.

Blasco said that there was no clear infection vector yet, but he suspected that a combination of Spear phishing campaigns, waterhole and strategic web compromises and even physical access to drop payloads was used. Asked if he felt that the sudden prevalence of the Snake virus was tied to the current situation in Russia/Ukraine, Blasco pointed out the timing and the fact that it had been detected in Lithuania, UK, Belgium and Georgia too. “That being said” Blasco continued, “the current geopolitical situations of those countries makes them a good target to acquire geopolitical intelligence from several countries (not only Russia). As we know there are several clues that points to the Russian origin of Snake.”

[The Belgian case was with a telecom company and the finger was definitely pointed at the United States: NSA – Oui !! Is the NSA/Unit8200 Stux worm biting the US in the ass? Belgacom attack by British GCHQ with spy technology developed by NSA]

In the comments section below, I will list my last three posts at Moon of Alabama about Radek Sikorski, Polish Foreign Minister, and Anne Applebaum, journalist and spouse of.

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