Russian DDoS attack hits French news agency AFP 

On March 11, 2024, the Russian ultranationalist hacktivist group, UserSec, launched a DDoS attack against Agence France Presse (AFP), a major French news agency. According to its journalists, the website of one of the two largest news agencies in the world (the other being Reuters) stayed down for around an hour, between 2 and 3 p.m.

The operation could be part of a broader DDoS offensive, the first wave of which was led by the Anonymous Sudan group against the websites of French ministries. Indeed, UserSec and Anonymous Sudan have carried out joint attacks in the past. 
In regard to the Anonymous Sudan attack, new information has come to light. Attackers are believed to have used InfraShutDown. The service, uploaded a few weeks ago, makes it possible to “rent” botnets capable of saturating a target website with requests. “The attack was brutal and lasting, and ministries are not prepared to handle it because they cannot transfer part of these illegal connections to an outside private-sector service provider who could protect them,” explained Matthieu Dierick, cybersecurity expert with the F5 company, to Le Parisien (French newspaper).