LOS ANGELES – The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection was operating as usual on Thursday after a series of cyber-attacks crippled the adult-industry-funded child-protection organization’s internet presence for part of the week.
Executive Director Tim Henning characterized the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as “criminal” and indicated they remained active but less severe.
Henning said problems began at 10 a.m. PST Tuesday, tying up all of the organization’s servers’ resources. By afternoon, technicians had repulsed most of the attack and visitors were able to reach ASACP.org and RTALabel.org by Tuesday afternoon.
“We were able to mitigate the attack on the 16th to some degree, allowing visitors to again access the sites, albeit a little slowly,” Henning said. “The initial attack continued to a lesser degree, but on Sep. 17 at 1 p.m. Pacific time, the attack resumed with much more force and sophistication.”
Henning said ASACP’s technical team was able to mitigate the second attack by blocking access to most of the country of Turkey. The team identified TurkTelecom as the source of a significant portion of the attack.
“The attack mutated until access was denied to the attackers,” he noted.
“We are conducting a full investigation in conjunction with our hosting company, National Net,” Henning said. “This incident is just another example of how ASACP has to defend itself from a wide range of enemies, and our legal team is standing by to take any necessary actions.”
The enemies, Henning said, “include everyone from ‘the bad guys’ who produce, consume and distribute illegal [child abuse content] to folks who consider themselves ‘the good guys’ and oppose ASACP because of the support it receives from and provides to the adult entertainment industry.
“The criminal attack on the association’s web servers and other resources occurred on the same day that Morality in Media condemned ASACP in its newsletter,” Henning continued. “I’m not at all saying the attacks are related [to MiM’s condemnation], but an unholy alliance of pedophiles and religious groups are seeking to damage ASACP and put an end to the good work it does in keeping children out of and away from adult entertainment.
“Our success is obviously having an impact on our enemies, and they mean to stop us,” he said. “But with the help of our sponsors, supporters and contributors, we will continue to make a positive difference in the battle to keep children safe online.”
