Botnet tracking logs from Project Bladerunner suggest politically motivated attacks on Russian sites

Arbor Networks’ Jose Nazario has done some digging into a recent wave of DDoS attacks and suspects attacks on multiple Russian Web sites are politically motivated. 

He wrote a blog post on his findings today. His research is based on botnet tracking logs from Project Bladerunner, in which Nazario and an intern created a mock bot they coded using Python. According to the logs, attacks on the various sites are politically motivated. “Four are news sites (three belong to journalufa). The other is a candidates site, and all attacks are ongoing,” Nazario writes. “The botnets here are Dirt Jumper and Black Energy. Despite press that the radio station Echo Moscow is getting political pressure for it’s pro-change reporting, we haven’t yet seen their properties struck by attacks as we have in the past.”

He added that the botnets behind the attacks have been instrumental in many DDoS attacks in recent weeks, some of which are on commercial properties while others are news sites.

“These appear to be their most overtly political targets. In short, these do not appear to be purpose built for political attacks,” Nazario writes.

He said Arbor will keep an eye on the situation, which it expects will intensify ahead of March 4 elections.