New York City-hating hacker claims credit for shutting down New York magazine
It's every publisher's worst nightmare: On the day a massive story is set to run, your website suddenly goes offline. Unfortunately, it's a nightmare that just became a reality for New York magazine. Less than 24 hours after publishing interviews with 35 different women who spoke about being assaulted by Bill Cosby, the magazine's website has gone down due to a distributed denial of service attack allegedly caused by a person affiliated with the hacking group Vikingdom2016.
The alleged hacker, using the handle "ThreatKing," wasn't even aware that New York was publishing the Cosby story today. ThreatKing is simply on a crusade to shut down any publication with "New York" in its name, due to a personal dislike for New York City. "I went to New York two months ago. It was really bad," said ThreatKing in an interview with The Daily Dot. "Someone pranked me. Everyone started laughing and shit. The first 10 hours being there. Some African-American tried to prank me with a fake hand gun." ThreatKing's future New York-centric targets include The New York Times, the website of New York's FBI bureau, and New York University.
ThreatKing told The Daily Dot that the goal is to keep New York offline for 14 hours. In the meantime, you can see excerpts from the Cosby story on New York's Instagram account.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
-
France makes first arrests in Louvre jewels heistSpeed Read Two suspects were arrested in connection with the daytime theft of royal jewels from the museum
-
Trump pardons crypto titan who enriched familySpeed Read Binance founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering while CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange
-
Thieves nab French crown jewels from LouvreSpeed Read A gang of thieves stole 19th century royal jewels from the Paris museum’s Galerie d’Apollon
-
Arsonist who attacked Shapiro gets 25-50 yearsSpeed Read Cody Balmer broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion and tried to burn it down
-
Man charged over LA’s deadly Palisades Firespeed read 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht has been arrested in connection with the fire that killed 12 people
-
4 dead in shooting, arson attack in Michigan churchSpeed Read A gunman drove a pickup truck into a Mormon church where he shot at congregants and then set the building on fire
-
2 kids killed in shooting at Catholic school massSpeed Read 17 others were wounded during a morning mass at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis
-
Australian woman found guilty of mushroom murdersspeed read Erin Patterson murdered three of her ex-husband's relatives by serving them toxic death cap mushrooms


