31 Jan 2014

Unprecedented attack on Whale Oil

8:24 pm on 31 January 2014

A technology commentator has said a cyber attack of the kind that took down the Whale Oil blog website is unprecedented in New Zealand.

TVNZ screengrab. Blogger Cameron Slater.

Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater. Photo: TVNZ

The attack happened shortly after the website published a derogatory blog about a West Coast man who died in a car crash.

Technology commentator Peter Griffin said the type of attack used, called Distributed Denial of Service or DDOS, has previously been used against the websites of governments or large corporations, not small blog sites like Whale Oil.

"It is very rare to see a New Zealand based individual or organisation go after another one like this. The person or people behind it will definitely have some experience here, but you don't have to have a master-stroke attack plan, I think, to take over a site like Whale Oil."

Whale Oil came back online on Thursday night with blogger Cameron Slater saying he knows who is behind the attack but doesn't have enough evidence to prove it in court.