Politically-motivated hacking, known as ‘hacktivism’, is now on the rise across large sections of the globe. Politically motivated groups are increasingly attacking their enemies with primitive but effective distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which involve overwhelming the target’s servers with vast volumes of internet traffic.
But, according to cybersecurity firm Cloudflare’s DDoS Threat Report, the organizations being targeted most are environmental agencies pursuing green agendas such as Net Zero. While Cloudflare reported an overall increase of 117 percent in DDoS attacks around Black Friday and the holiday season, DDoS attacks on environmental agencies have soared over sixty-thousand-fold over the same period.
“There was a staggering 61,839% surge in DDoS attack traffic targeting Environmental Services websites compared to the previous year, coinciding with the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 28),” reports Cloudflare.
COP 28, which took place from 30 November to 13 December 2023, at Expo City, Dubai in the UAE and mobilized over US$85 billion for climate action, may have angered many groups already in fierce opposition to what they see as Western governments’ draconian enforcement of environmental policies.
Berlin brought to a standstill
On Monday, farmers with their tractors brought the streets of Germany’s capital to a standstill, honking their horns in protest at a plan to scrap tax breaks on diesel. Meanwhile, protesting farmers in France have turned road signs from Brittany to Burgundy upside-down in protest claiming that environmental initiatives being handed down from Brussels and the Elysee Palace are costing them their livelihoods. These events are the continuation of a year of protests not only by farmers across France and Holland but also by many consumers and businesses unwilling to meet the high financial cost of achieving Net Zero at a time when the world’s big new consumers of energy, China and India, show absolutely no intention of following suit.
The coming 12 months are more than likely to see a rapid escalation in DDoS attacks. In addition to growing popular opposition to the environmental policies now being enforced by the EU and many Western governments, upcoming elections in the US and UK, ongoing and possibly escalating conflict in the Middle East, China’s aggressive expansionist policy in the South China Sea, Russia’s territorial ambitions and the ongoing war in Ukraine all point to a perfect DDoS storm sweeping across the West in 2024.
