*Or maybe not. There's always the slim chance that these are previously-unknown FEMALE black-hat hackers at work. "Hey Natasha, look, you and I are the only female Russian malefactors with our own botnet – let's take down the site of International Women's Day! That'll show 'em!"
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/pressrelease2.asp
Tuesday 08 March 2011 A global hub for sharing International Women's Day news, events and resources
BREAKING NEWS: Hackers attack global International Women's Day website in attempt to foil activity - more
PRESS RELEASE
BREAKING NEWS: Hackers attack global International Women's Day website
LONDON March 8, 2011: As midnight struck in the Asia Pacific region, perpetrators commenced attacking the global internationalwomensday.com website.
As the Centenary of International Women's Day (IWD) struck in the Asia Pacific region, perpetrators commenced attacking the internationalwomensday.com website in an explicit attempt to prevent users from accessing the global hub for International Women's Day. The attack was countered but a second major attack on the website struck as Europe was waking at 06:00 GMT. The second attack was countered with service restored. A third attack was then experienced at 10:00 GMT.
Women's groups, charities, governments, corporations, schools, universities, the media and women around the world have geared up for the biggest International Women's Day ever. Almost 2,000 events are occurring around the world with many further events happening online.
Performer and social activist, Annie Lennox, who leads the International Women's Day mass march across London's Millennium Bridge for charity 'Women for Women' said that the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is "a moment in time". The day, marked by millions around the world, celebrates the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.
Founder of the internationalwomensday.com website, women's campaigner and Australian entrepreneur Glenda Stone, said "We are monitoring the attack but women's spirits will not be dampened by the attempts of those who do not support International Women's Day. Activity around the world continues to mark the day's significance as millions of women rise to campaign for equality and celebrate achievement." The IWD website was brought down for a number of hours during the attacks which were ongoing.
Almost 2,000 events have been posted on the IWD website by women and organisations around the world. Thousands of websites link to the http://www.internationalwomensday.com website.
International Women's Day is most actively celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Australia and India although activity occurs in almost all countries and is increasing.
Last month on February 28, President Obama officially proclaimed the whole month of March as Women's History Month in the United States.
Further notes:
The International Women's Day website, set to see well over 100,000 visitors on 8 March alone, has recently been seeing around 25,000 users per day.
The attack on the International Women's Day website was a Denial of service (DoS) attack. The website was the target of a number of massive 5 gigabytes per second (Gbps) denial of service attacks. These type of attacks have brought many leading websites around the world to their knees. They occur when there is an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a service from using the service.
The http://www.internationalwomensday.com website was attacked just after 00.01 on 8 March Asia Pacific time and at 06:00 GMT. The website was returned to use in just over one hour after the first attack, and just under three hours after the second attack. A third denial-of-service attack occurred at 10:00 GMT. The situation is being monitored closely.
About the www.internationalwomensday.com website...
