As the 2023 NFL Kickoff approaches, with the Detroit Lions facing the reigning Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday, September 7, hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan alleged a cyber attack on ESPN, the prominent American international basic cable sports channel.
The hacker group has released a screenshot as evidence of their alleged ESPN cyber attack claim, specifically targeting the official website of the renowned sports and entertainment company
While the ESPN cyber attack remains unconfirmed and the website continues to function, the incident raises concerns, particularly given the buzz surrounding the upcoming football season.
ESPN Cyber Attack by Anonymous Sudan Unconfirmed!
Anonymous Sudan posted a message claiming the ESPN cyber attack that read, “ESPN Down.” The ESPN outage message that reflected on the dark web post was from September 5th 2023.
The posted screenshot indicated a total of 513 reports on the ESPN website in the past 24 hours, presumably due to the reported outage. Threat Intelligence researchers from Cyber Know tweeted the above screenshot from Anonymous Sudan’s dark web portal.
They wrote, “AS Sudan claimed to have targeted ESPN – site is working fine at the time of posting, but any impact to ESPN with the NFL so close to starting will cause some outrage.”
The Cyber Express has emailed the officials of ESPN for confirming the alleged ESPN cyber attack. We will update this report once we receive a response from them.
Targets of Anonymous Sudan
X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced recent downtime attributed to an alleged cyber attack reportedly carried out by Anonymous Sudan. “Make our message reach to Elon Musk: ‘Open Starlink in Sudan,’” Anonymous Sudan wrote on its Telegram page.
A BBC reporters engaged with members of the Anonymous Sudan group, including a member who identified as Crush, in order to delve into their motivations and cyber attack methods.
Crush disclosed to the BBC that their attack on X involved flooding its servers with a substantial volume of traffic, rendering it inaccessible – a method commonly known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Website checking service, Downdetector confirmed that nearly 20,000 outage reports were logged due to errors found on X. They were reported by users in the US and UK.
“Our long-term goal is to show the world that Sudanese people, although with limited capabilities, have very good skills in many different fields,” Crush told the BBC.
August saw other DDoS attacks launched on websites in the hands of Anonymous Sudan. They targeted the French postal service La Poste and the fan fiction website Archive of Own Own (AO3).
The hackers from the hacktivist group were found demanding Elon Musk to restore connectivity in Sudan. The internet service in Sudan has been impacted by the civil war.
Down Detector found the website of La Poste getting disrupted for a few hours. The hackers claimed the La Poste DDoS attack on Telegram. They said that they did it to ruin the day of the French President Emmanuel Macron.
AO3 was subjected to a cyber attack twice by the group that claimed, “Archive of our Own, we downed you earlier today, enjoy part two,” on their Telegram channel. The hackers opposed the content broadcasted on the website of AO3 which led them to attack them in July 2023.
In July, the hacktivist group targeted PayPal with a test DDoS attack. The cyber attack that lasted for about 30 seconds on PayPal displayed error messages on the payment gateway as posted on Telegram.
They posted threats of launching cyber attacks on organizations in the United Arab Emirates and the United States following the PayPal test attack.
Media Disclaimer: This report is based on internal and external research obtained through various means. The information provided is for reference purposes only, and users bear full responsibility for their reliance on it. The Cyber Express assumes no liability for the accuracy or consequences of using this information.
