The website of CNN Philippines went down on Sunday, Feb. 27 at about 7:30pm in the evening due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack during the live presidential debate that it hosted.
A website DDoS is a type of cyber attack wherein a target is flooded with so many traffic requests coming from multiple sources (usually zombie botnets) such that it can no longer serve Web pages properly.
In an advisory on its Facebook page , the local affiliate of CNN announced:
“The CNN Philippines website is currently inaccessible amid the #CNNPHPresidentialDebate due to a DDoS attack.
We would like to assure everyone that we are working to get the site up and running as soon as possible.
You may continue monitoring our social media accounts @cnnphilippines for #NewsYouCanTrust.”
The website was successfully taken down by attackers despite Cloudflare DDoS protection being on.
Mainstream Philippine news and journalist websites, as well as those from alternative media have been heavily subjected to DDoS attacks in recent months.
Targets have included Vera Files, ABS-CBN, Rappler, Bulgar, GMA News, CNN, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Bulatlat, Kodao Productions, AlterMidya, and Pinoy Weekly.
Under the law, it is the duty of the cybercrime units of the National Bureau of Investigation and Philippine National Police to go after the perpetrators of the DDoS attacks against journalists and news outlets.
