Attempts to reach the website of NY Magazine this morning have been unsuccessful and greeted with a total DNS failure:
[4]
This is the same outlet that just a few hours ago, late on Sunday evening, released a story in which 35 women shared their stories of allegedly being assaulted by Bill Cosby, something NY Mag said was "six months in the making."
35 women tell their stories of being assaulted by Bill Cosby. A project 6 months in the making http://t.co/C5ussU3ocj [5] pic.twitter.com/EyfAtMqf5b [6]
— NYMag PR (@nymagPR) July 27, 2015 [7]
Its website went dark shortly thereafter, and both the Cosby article and the entire website have been offline since.
NY Mag promptly tried to make it appear that the site had crashed as a result of a traffic surge created by the Cosby piece...
it seems the @NYMag [8] site is down because of the huge volume of hits http://t.co/8ks2ISKDJL [9] #TheEmptyChair [10] https://t.co/dqLo9lsSJf [11]
— maryteatowel (@maryteatowel) July 27, 2015 [12]
... until it was revealed that far from an organic traffic spike, the site had been simply DDOSed.
Our site is experiencing technical difficulties. We are aware of the issue, and working on a fix.
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) July 27, 2015 [13]
So is the "darking" of NY Mag connected to the Cosby piece? It appears the two events are completely unrelated, even if, as the NYT further reports [14], NY Mag was indeed hacked and taken down: on Twitter, a user who goes by Vikingdom2016 claimed responsibility for an XML attack on the site.
Lol, we ruined New York big night.
— Vikingdom2016 (@Vikingdom2016) July 27, 2015 [15]
1 member gets caught = New Yorkers getting swatted!
— Vikingdom2016 (@Vikingdom2016) July 27, 2015 [16]
http://t.co/zGfQXK3hku [17] site data might be corrupted since we sent massive XML attack on their servers.
#Vikingdom2015 [18] #Vikingdom2016 [19]
— Vikingdom2016 (@Vikingdom2016) July 27, 2015 [20]
In an interview with the website Daily Dot, the hacker, also known as ThreatKing, said the attack was based on a hatred for New York, and was not related to the cover that features Mr. Cosby’s accusers.
“I have not even seen the cover, LOL,” he told the website over Skype on Monday.
While it works to restore its website, the magazine is finding other ways to publish: It began posting audio related to the cover article on Instagram.
In retrospect, perhaps getting hacked is becoming a good marketing campaign: three weeks ago the market was shocked when the NYSE went offline for a record 4 hours, with speculation this may be due to a Chinese hack attack, before it was revealed that an incompetent software update was the culprit, and that virtually nobody trades on the NYSE anyway.
For today's struggling media, this may be an easy way to generate if not clicks (after all the site is down in the period in question), then at least publicity. And how soon until we read about the first case of that "black hats" being quietly retained by the targets of their hacking exploits, to result in a win-win outcome for all involved?