ASACP Takes Action to Fend Off Cyber Attacks Against Sites

The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) just issued the following statement regarding actions it has taken to counter a series of cyber attacks it says were directed against ASACP.org and RTALabel.org. LOS ANGELES—The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) announces that it is taking emergency actions to fend off a criminal cyber attack. According to ASACP’s Executive Director, Tim Henning, both ASACP.org and RTALabel.org came under DDoS attack on Tuesday, September 16 at 10:00 a.m. PST. “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 says. “The initial attack continued to a lesser degree, but today, Sep. 17, at 1:00 p.m. PST, the attack resumed with much more force and sophistication.” Henning explains that ASACP’s technical team has been able to again mitigate the second attack to a large degree, but had to ban user access from most of the country of Turkey to do so because the attack mutated until access was denied to the attackers. The team identified TurkTelecom as the source of a significant portion of the attack. Henning advises visitors to ASACP.org and RTALabel.org that may have had problems or slow speeds accessing the sites, that they should be loading swiftly at this time, now that the majority of attackers have been denied access to the server. While the attack is still ongoing, it is largely mitigated for now, although it could return as it did today, the technical team warns. “We are conducting a full investigation in conjunction with our hosting company, National Net,” Henning added. “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.” Henning says that these enemies include everyone from “the bad guys” that produce, consume, and distribute illegal CP, to folks that 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 observes. “I’m not at all saying that these attacks are related, 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,” Henning concludes. “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.” For more information on how you or your company can do the right thing, and protect your business by protecting children, please e-mail tim@asacp.org.