Hackers attack Clinton

Team Udayavani, Sep 4, 2017, 3:28 PM IST

New York : Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fell victim to a cyber attack after she endorsed a social media platform for her political supporters, a media report said today. Clinton yesterday personally endorsed a new, relatively unknown website called Verrit, after which it went offline.

Start-up founder and Democratic operative Peter Daou said his website, Verrit, went offline because of a suspected distributed denial-of-service attack following the former presidential candidate’s glowing review, New York Daily reported. “Hillary Clinton endorsed @Verrit, our new media platform, an hour ago and we’ve already been subjected to a denial-of-service attack,” Daou tweeted. “We’re working on restoring it ASAP.”

Daou said Verrit was his attempt to create an online hub for Clinton backers so that they can find easy-to-share facts, stats and other “information you can take out to social media when you’re having debates on key issues people are discussing”. “I’m excited to sign up for @Verrit, a media platform for the 65.8 million! Will you join me and sign up too?” 59-year- old Clinton tweeted.

The “65.8 million” in Clinton’s tweet is her own vote total from the 2016 presidential election. Soon after Clinton’s tweet, Verrit stopped loading — the result of a “pretty significant and sophisticated” cyber attack, Daou said. He later complained that he had received a “torrent of Hillary hate” following the pol plug, the report said.
Daou, who previously worked for Clinton’s senate campaign and first White House bid, said his media site caters to the 65.8 million who voted for Clinton.

He said it would feature graphics with “rigorously- verified info,” without elaborating on how or who would be fact-checking the work, that can be circulated on social media platforms.