Politics & Government

Matt Drudge suggests US government behind cyberattack on ‘Drudge Report’

By Greg Hadley

ghadley@mcclatchy.com

December 29, 2016 09:30 PM

Matt Drudge, author of the "Drudge Report," a daily barrage of breaking news, gossip and politics available on the internet, claimed on Twitter that the U.S. government may be attacking his website, though he offered no proof and his site is still active as of Thursday night.
Matt Drudge, author of the "Drudge Report," a daily barrage of breaking news, gossip and politics available on the internet, claimed on Twitter that the U.S. government may be attacking his website, though he offered no proof and his site is still active as of Thursday night. KHUE BUI ASSOCIATED PRESS
Matt Drudge, author of the "Drudge Report," a daily barrage of breaking news, gossip and politics available on the internet, claimed on Twitter that the U.S. government may be attacking his website, though he offered no proof and his site is still active as of Thursday night. KHUE BUI ASSOCIATED PRESS

In his first tweets from his personal account, Matthew Drudge, creator of the popular news website "The Drudge Report," alleged that the U.S. government might be trying to crash his website.

Drudge started his Twitter account in 2011.

DDoS is an acronym for distributed denial-of-service attack and refers to a tactic used by some organizations to overwhelm a website’s server with millions of requests and cause it to crash. A major DDoS attack this past October caused popular websites such as Twitter, Netflix, Amazon and Reddit to go dark for many users, per USA Today.

Drudge’s mention of Fort Meade is a reference to the Maryland headquarters of the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command.

As of Thursday night, “Drudge Report” was still available to readers on multiple internet browsers, according to the Washington Times. However, the International Business Times reports that the website was briefly unavailable around 7 p.m. Eastern time Thursday.

Drudge’s speculation comes just hours after the Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia in retaliation for hacking efforts aimed at disrupting the presidential election. Russia’s role in the hacks, which many political analysts say aided Republican Donald Trump, has been disputed by some conservatives and Trump himself.

“The Drudge Report” has covered Trump favorably in the past, and at least one activist group has accused the site of pushing Russian propaganda throughout the election.

Through the website’s official Twitter account, Drudge said the attack lasted 90 minutes.

According to Politico, “The Drudge Report,” which was launched in 1995 and has famously kept its bare-bones design and long lists of links, is the top referrer of traffic to the Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News, Roll Call, Breitbart, The New York Times, National Journal, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Politico itself. The site has more than 700 million page views per month

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